Yoko Yamada

Daiwa Capital Markets America, Inc. (DCMA), formerly Daiwa Securities America, Inc., is an SEC-registered broker/dealer headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1964. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daiwa Capital Markets America Holdings, Inc., itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co. Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Daiwa Securities Group, Inc. (TK: 8601), a Tokyo-based investment bank and broker/dealer. DCMA provides high quality investment data, analysis and research products to major U.S. institutional investors.

Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd. (DIR) is a research firm located in New York City. They are a subsidiary of the Japanese firm Daiwa Securities Group Co. Ltd. Their research is based on a respect for fundamentals, focusing on determining intrinsic values of companies and industries. DIR is in the first tier of Institutional Investors' All-Japan Research Team survey, as well as in the Nikkei Financial Dailys analyst ranking. DIR is renowned as an opinion leader in the Japanese financial industry. Their economists have been publishing 'Japan's Economic Outlook', based on original econometric modeling, quarterly since 1970. They publish opinion and commentary on economic policies, financial systems and structural problems in capital markets.