The Thomson Intraday Snapshot Service harnesses Thomson Financial's datafeeds expertise by providing investment management clients with a fast, comprehensive, batch snapshot service of Thomson Financial's global real-time and reference data. The addition of evaluated bond prices to the Thomson Intraday Snapshot Service will specifically help fund administrators and hedge fund management clients address operational risks arising from opaque pricing of illiquid securities. These include concerns about the accuracy and validity of margins, capital, collateral, hedging and reporting, which were recently highlighted by the UK's Financial Services Authority in its Financial Risk Outlook 2006.

Thomas Aubrey, Investment Management Director, Thomson Financial, commented: "We appreciate that our clients need to price illiquid fixed income securities to help manage both operational risks and changing regulatory requirements. The incorporation of bond valuations from Standard & Poor's Securities Evaluations to the Thomson Intraday Snapshot Service, which already includes the full breadth and depth of Thomson Financial’s real-time and reference content, will help our clients secure timely, independent and objective security valuations."

Thomson Financial selected Standard & Poor's Securities Evaluations' content in recognition of its expertise and proprietary valuation methodology. This allows for clear, considered and timely prices from the full range of information available, helping firms avoid regional pricing discrepancies and other issues on illiquid markets. Standard & Poor's Securities Evaluations will deliver prices of illiquid fixed income securities up to five times a day for the following asset classes:

• Structured Debt instruments including Global and European Collaterized Mortgage Obligations and Asset and Mortgage backed Securities
• Corporates
• Governments
• Syndicated loans
• US municipals
• Certificates of Deposits
• Swaps/Swaptions

"Our service provides an independent, rigorous and credible answer for intraday valuations and mark-to-market problems within this increasingly important but thinly traded market. This agreement provides an additional important channel for financial services professionals to access Standard & Poor's global multi-asset class evaluations," says Frank Cicotto, Senior Vice President, Securities Evaluations, Standard & Poor's. "We continue to aggressively grow our global asset class coverage especially in the critically important complex instrument sectors. In addition, we will expand our delivery channels to enable our clients to receive the data when and how they need it."