Bloomberg November 2009: Muni Credit Spreads Widen to 2-Month High on Weaker fund Flows In this article, our Portfolio Manager, B. Clark Stamper, commenting on the downturn in municipal bonds from October 5, 2009, forecasts a continued drop to be similar to the horrendous one of 2008. He points out that he used the rally that just ended to position clients even more defensively. – Note that, as of 1-16-2010, very few investors as well as professionals seem to have noticed the significance of that top, which is still in place, and which we believe will have been a precursor to a large overall market decline, similar to 2008, including drops across the board in riskier assets and longer term bonds.

MuniMarket Pulse April 2008 In this article, “B. Clark Stamper, Chief Investment Officer and President of Stamper Capital & Investments describes why history repeats itself with failing hedge ratios for muni [hedge] fund managers. Stamper also describes declining new issuance and predicts widening credit spreads.” Clark also explains, in part, why the Fund and accounts he managed performed so well in February 2008.

Reuters January 2007: Analysis – Time to Take Profits in High-Yield Muni Funds In this article, our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, comments about the lack of downside protection in risky assets.

On Wall Street November 2006: Managing Multiples “On Wall Street teamed with Morningstar to find managers who successfully handle multiple investment vehicles, many of which are open to retail investors. In an effort to discern how these multi-taskers operate, we profiled 10 managers who run three or more distinct equity products and nine fixed income managers who handle at least two distinct products. And while these professionals aren’t the only stars in the investment universe, they’ve all generated good performance in the strategies they follow.” Our Portfolio Manager, B. Clark Stamper, was the only manager of municipal bonds highlighted in the article/study.

Desert News, Salt Lake City September 2005: Cover Bases When Investing in Bonds In this article our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, correctly calls short term interest rates and the real estate top. Also, the Fund he is Portfolio Manager for is ranked as a “Top short-term municipal bond fund…” Read exactly what he said.

“Tobacco Bonds Could Become ‘Gold Mine’ in Wake of Refunding Rumors,” The Bond Buyer, July 19, 2005: In this article, our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, discusses reasons for the recent out-performance of tax-free, municipal tobacco settlement bonds. In addition, he discusses the upside potential and downside protection of lower quality bonds in general and how the yield differential between lower quality bonds and higher quality bonds is fairly ‘compressed.’

Reuters/Fund View October 2004: Evergreen Manager See’s Cushion Bond Bubble In this article, our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, talks about the scarcity of values in the market and how those stretching for extra possible yield have created what he calls a “cushion bond bubble.” The article also details the October 1, 2004 name change of the open-ended municipal bond fund that he has managed since June 1990.

Reuters/Fund View December 2003: Evergreen Manager See’s More Risk Than Reward Our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, discusses the poor risk/reward ratios currently in the financial markets and how he is dealing with them. In particular, the article highlights Clark Stamper’s previous success when managing the Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund in 1994, the worst year for bonds in the 1990s.

Morningstar April 2003: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds Morningstar’s Scott Berry points out the stability of the Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund, along with three other short-term municipal bond funds, and the protection they provide against rising interest rates.

Bloomberg January 2003: Stamper Capital’s Clark Stamper on California Tobacco Bond Trends In an interview format, our Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, discusses the attractiveness of investing in “Tobacco Bonds” – municipal bonds being issued by State governments to securitize the payments they are to receive from the Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco manufacturers and marketers to reimburse the States for healthcare costs incurred in the past.

Morningstar December 2002: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds Morningstar’s Scott Berry touts the recent success of, not only the Short-Term Muni Category, but the Stamper Capital-managed Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund, in particular, as well as four other top picks.

Morningstar November 2002: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds Morningstar reviews the Stamper Capital managed Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund as well as four other top pick short-term muni bond funds.

Morningstar August 2002: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds Once again Morningstar recommends the Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund as one of the top five short-term municipal bond funds. This article also has a link to a short video clip where Morningstar Analyst, Eric Jacobson, reviews the top picks for the Muni-Short category.

Barron’s April 2002: Off The Ladder This article compares the strategies of laddering and active management strategies in the bond markets. Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, discusses the advantages active management provides to investors over ladder investing.

Morningstar February 2002: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds For the fourth consecutive time Morningstar selected the Stamper Capital managed mutual fund as one of their “top-picks” for the Muni Short Category.

The Street January 2002: Meet the Street – Taking Measure of Muni Bonds As the past two years have shown, bonds are an essential part of any portfolio. While the S&P 500 has averaged 10.5% losses over the last two years, the Lehman Brothers Aggregate Bond index has gained an average of 11.4% over the same time period. The article features portfolio manager Clark Stamper and highlights the Stamper Capital managed municipal bond fund, which ranked #1 according to Lipper for the three-year period ending December 31, 2001.

Morningstar September 2001: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds For the third year in a row, the Stamper Capital managed Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund is a pick of its Morningstar category. The article discusses the role of short-term municipal bonds in a portfolio and the top performing municipal bond funds in this category according to Morningstar. This recognition testifies to SCI’s remarkable portfolio management record.

Financial Planning June 2001: How Now Dow Jones? This article presents the views of a variety of different financial service professionals on the state of the market and what the future holds. In the article, Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, makes several comments on the differences between investing and speculating.

Morningstar April 2001: Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund Gets Cautious This article discusses fund manager, Clark Stamper’s, recent shift in portfolio holdings in anticipation of the economy’s future.

Reuters April 2001: Interview – Bond Fund Manager Finds Gold in PG&E Manager Clark Stamper discusses opportunities he has taken advantage of in riskier bonds, specifically PG&E and USG for the Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund, which he manages.

Morningstar February 2001: Our Favorite Muni Short Funds Morningstar discusses their favorite short-term municipal bond funds and what distinguishes them from other short-term funds. In this review Morningstar highlights the Stamper Capital managed mutual fund, the Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund, as “generating some of the best long-term returns in the muni-short group.”

Bloomberg January 2001: Stamper Capital’s Clark Stamper on Fed Rate Cut – Bond Comment

Brill August 2000: As Muni Demand Increases Focus is on After-Tax Value This article focuses on the current value of the municipal bond market. The article also discusses some strategies portfolio manager Clark Stamper uses in the Evergreen Tax-Free High Income Fund to take advantage of the “inefficiencies” in the municipal market.

Worldly Investor July 2000: The Munificence of Bond Funds This article discusses the importance of municipal bonds in the portfolio of a high income tax bracket individual. Clark Stamper discusses why the municipal market is particularly beneficial to individuals in the 20% tax bracket or higher and by using the municipal market they can significantly decrease a portion of the risk taken in their portfolio, while taking advantage of exceptional tax-free yields. The article also mentions the Evergreen Tax-Free High Income Fund, which Stamper manages, and characteristics that make the fund one of the top in its category.

Morningstar December 1999: The Pick of the Muni-Short Category In this article Morningstar examines several short-term municipal bond funds, one of the top on the list is the Davis Tax-Free High Income Fund (later renamed: The Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund), managed by Clark Stamper since June 1990.

Morningstar November 1999: Avoiding the Call Pitfall This article gives an overview of callable bonds and recommends the Davis Tax-Free High Income Fund (later renamed: The Evergreen High Income Municipal Bond Fund), managed by Clark Stamper since June 1990, as one of the best sources to take advantage of callable bonds.

The Bond Buyer May 1999: Stocks, Treasuries – for Yield, Muni’s Beat Them All In this article, portfolio manager, Clark Stamper explains why he thinks U.S. Treasury bonds are cheap to stocks and why munis are cheap to U.S. Treasury bonds and verifies that since that is true, muni’s are exceptionally attractive to stocks. In fact, he points out that on a yield basis municipal bonds are the cheapest they have been relative to U.S. Treasury bonds since before the top of the bond market in early 1987 and the cheapest they have been relative to the stock market since the stock market peak in 1987. Clark Stamper emphasizes that, “While an investor is hanging out waiting for [market] relationships to normalize, if they are invested in municipal bonds, they are getting the highest relative yields while they wait.”

Ticker March 1998: Finding Refuge at City Hall In this article, writer Harvey Shapiro points out why muni’s are currently attractive compared to other bond investments. In the last half of the article he highlights five out of 180 tax-free load funds that he picked using Morningstar’s Principia software. “We instructed the system to find funds that have produced above-average returns while recording relatively little volatility, as indicated by standard deviation.”

South Florida Sun-Sentinel October 1997: Manager’s Savvy Helps Bond Fund Combine Good Yields With Low Risk This article details how specialized bond funds can work as a much lower risk substitute for equity funds or as an excellent diversification vehicle.

Investors’ Business Daily May 1997: Stamper Takes Low-Risk Path to Returns “Why own stocks when you can get equity-sized yields at a fraction of the risk from specialized bond funds?” questions portfolio manager, B. Clark Stamper. The article points out that the Davis Tax-Free High Income fund has an SEC yield of 6.89% which translates to 11.48% on a pre-tax basis for investors in the 40% tax bracket. “And that taxable equivalent is a tad higher than the long-term total return of the broad stock market …The average credit rating of the 280 security portfolio is rated A+ by the credit rating agencies.” And the duration is only about four years. The article goes on to discuss the “tactics [Stamper uses] to reach for those yields while limiting downside risk.” It points out that “in the first quarter, when 72% of the 525 municipal bond funds tracked by Morningstar had negative returns, Davis Tax-Free High Income returned 1.27%.”

Tax Angles March 1997: Low-Risk, High-Yield Muni Fund This article highlights the methods Clark Stamper used to achieve performance consisting of “almost imperceptible volatility and a rate of return that in 1996 put [it] ahead of all of those of its 508 peers.”

Thomson February 1997: Bond Funds That Defy Gravity This article highlights seven bond funds out of 3,500 fixed-income funds that “made money during the first quarter of 1996, a period when most bond funds lost more than 1 percentage point.” “To make sure the portfolio managers had survived the cut because of skill, not luck, …[the author]… checked how the funds had done during three other periods when many bond funds lost money – the first and second quarters of 1994 and the fourth quarter of 1993.”

The Bond Buyer January 1997: Channeling New Money to High-Yield Debt Kept Fund Aloft This article highlights how “an emphasis on housing and industrial development bonds produced a strong performance… [and the]…fourth highest [performance] in Lipper’s high-yield group.” It details how Clark Stamper’s knowledge of, and participation in, other investment categories such as taxable, mortgaged-backed bonds (GNMAs & FNMAs), and taxable corporate bonds is a benefit when investing in the municipal bond market.

The Bond Buyer June 1996: Manager Goes Far & Wide in Quest for Risk-Adjusted Returns This article details how “Striving for the highest possible risk-adjusted performance takes B. Clark Stamper to corners of the municipal market that are rarely visited by other portfolio managers…” In the article, Clark explains how market inefficiencies create opportunities in the fixed-income markets.

Barron’s December 1995: The Most Dangerous Four-Letter Word This article details the risks that exist in the bond market, different ways to measure them, and different ways to measure superior risk-adjusted performance. In the last three paragraphs, the article points out that Clark Stamper has achieved the highest Sharpe Ratios “by ferreting out obscure securities that tend to be inefficiently priced and by spreading the risk among a larger than normal number of credits…”

The Bond Buyer July 1995: What Do Investors Need to Know About Risk? This article discusses the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plans to improve risk disclosure by mutual funds. In it, Clark Stamper points out “that most people just follow trends that they see in the media, like focusing on total return … They don’t realize that they’re taking on a lot of risk.”

Investors’ Business Daily January 1995: Stamper Stands Tall Amid Fallen Bond Funds This article points out that “Clark Stamper had the right game plan for racking up above-average fixed-income returns in 1994: defense.” The article details strategies and implementation that resulted in top performance in the taxable and tax-free bond markets in 1994.

Bond Fund Report October 1994: Municipal Focus – Venture Muni Plus Article highlights methods used by Clark Stamper when managing “the number one performing municipal bond fund in 1994.” 1994 was the worst bond market since 1927.

The Bond Buyer September 1994: Managing Muni’s From a Corporate Credit Perspective In a question and answer format, Clark Stamper, explains “the advantages of managing both tax-exempt and taxable [bond portfolios]…” The article points out “that three of the funds that Stamper manages [are ranked] among the top 10 best performers in their categories”… in 1994, the worst bond market since 1927.

New York Times July 1991: Tax-Free Bonds Up in Quarter “The best-performing municipal bond fund for the quarter was the Venture Muni Plus fund [now named Evergreen Strategic], a high yield fund.” In the article, Portfolio Manager, Clark Stamper, explains why the Fund performed so well.