Robert M. Gold

Standard & Poor's Investment Advisory Services LLC (SPIAS) is investment research firm and registered investment advisor headquartered in New York City. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of S&P Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPGI), formerly McGraw Hill Financial, Inc. SPIAS’ advisory services are generally offered to institutions (e.g., broker-dealers, investment advisers, investment companies and other financial institutions). SPIAS does not generally provide its advisory services directly to retail clients, but its services may be used by its clients in advising their own underlying clients, which may include retail clients. SPIAS also provides advisory consulting services to institutional clients and investment managers-of-investment funds, and investment sub-advisory services for registered investment companies, including open-end mutual funds and other institutions. S&P Global's operations consist of three reportable segments: S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Platts, and S&P Dow Jones Indices. S&P Global Ratings is an independent provider of credit ratings, research and analytics to investors, issuers and market participants. It includes the NRSRO and certain other ratings-related businesses. S&P Global Platts provides essential price data, analytics, and industry insight that enable commodities markets to perform with greater transparency and efficiency. S&P Dow Jones Indices is a global index provider that maintains a wide variety of indices to meet an array of investor needs. In 2016, CFRA acquired S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Equity and Fund Research business (formerly known as S&P Capital IQ and SNL) from S&P Global, Inc.

On April 12, 1853, the New York State legislature passed a bill chartering the United States Trust Co. of New York with the mission of serving as manager, executor and trustee of personal and corporate funds. They opened for business in New York City in August of that year. US Trust has divisions in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Oregon, California, Washington, and the District of Columbia. The firm also owns Campbell Cowperthwait, which manages growth-oriented portfolios for U.S. Trust's institutional clients.

Founded by Louis Miscioscia, Brigantine Advisors is an independent equity research firm located in New York City. The firm seeks to provide timely analysis of market trends by identifying major technology shifts. Within the macro environment, they seek to identify profitable investment opportunities with a focus on both the financial and technical capabilities of the companies they analyze. Brigantine Advisors follows the technology, healthcare, information technology services, business services, supply chain, enterprise infrastructure, Internet/entertainment and semiconductors sectors. Within the enterprise infrastructure sector, they focus on storage and managed services, hardware/EMS and communications industries. Within the semiconductors sector, the firm focuses on the analog, solar and communications IC industries. In the area of the Internet and entertainment, most of their research is on the digital media industry and within the healthcare sector, they tend to focus on medical devices.