Latin America. The countries of Central and South America (including Mexico, but excluding the Caribbean countries).

Lehman Brothers@ Aggregate Bond Index. A benchmark index made up of government, agency, corporate and mortgage bonds whose securities are investment-grade quality or higher, have at least one year to maturity, and have an outstanding par value of at least $100 million.

Maturity / maturity date. The date when the issuer of a money market instrument or bond agrees to repay the principal, or face value, to the buyer.

Market capitalisation. A determination of a company's value, calculated by multiplying the total number of company stock shares outstanding by the price per share. Also called capitalisation. Typical Market cap breakdown: large-cap (over $12 billion), medium-cap (under $12 billion; over $1 billion), small-cap (under $1 billion).

Market risk. The possibility that stock or bond prices overal will decline over short or even extended periods. Stock and bond markets tend to move in cycles, with periods of rising prices and periods of failing prices.

Moody's. Moody's Investors Services, Inc. and its successsors. Moody's rates most of the publicly held corporate and municipal bonds and many Treasury and government agency issues. Moody’s also rates commercial paper, preferred and common stocks and municipal short-term issues. Its parent company is Dun & Bradstreet.

MSCI World Index. An index, weighted by market size, that approximates the performance of the world’s stock markets. This index is unmanaged and is used as the benchmark for a number of the funds because it represents the universe of securities from which our analysts can choose. It should be stressed that Franklin Templeton Investments picks stocks based on value and not index weightings, thus the composition of our funds may not mirror that of the MSCI World Index.