Our business, like many others, has been impacted by the recent unprecedented events, which served to compound the softening of our business following July's anniversary sale.

We've wanted to be part of this community for more than 25 years, and we are excited to have the opportunity to quickly expand our presence in the greater Boston area.

We'll continue to adjust our staffing levels to the sales performance we have.

While our comparable-store sales were negative for the quarter, we are beginning to see improving sales trends in certain areas of our business, reflecting a better balance of fashion, brands and prices. We remain focused on addressing opportunities to increase volume.

We do intend on holding industrial events in emerging markets like the 'brick' nations: China, India and other emerging economies.

I think what attracted hedge funds (to the reinsurance business) was that these are random events that don't correlate to bond markets and stocks, and you get certainty pretty quickly. You either have the loss or you don't.