IR research the Web 2.0 way — free!
AS THE US first quarter earnings season officially got underway with yesterday’s results from Dow component Alcoa Inc., IR departments were preparing to monitor their peers’ results and release their own numbers. Knowing what competitors are saying and getting a feel for the types of questions analysts are asking can help companies prepare for their [...]
We've acquired Thomson Financial's IR website business
Please note the date of this post (and the many clues throughout) should tell you it can’t be trusted. AFTER several weeks of intense negotiations, I’m proud to announce today that my company last night signed a binding agreement to purchase the investor relations website hosting and webcasting business of Thomson Financial. The Thomson Financial [...]
Democratizing the earnings call
INVESTORS in US-listed stocks will notice something different this quarter when they visit Yahoo! Finance to catch up on the latest corporate earnings results. For the first time, they will have free access to full-text transcripts of earnings conference calls on approximately 2,500 companies thanks to Seeking Alpha, a firm started by former Wall Street [...]
What if more sell-side research goes independent?
THE Economist looks at the seemingly perilous plight of traditional broker research and concludes that the sell-side is far from dead, but the industry may drift from the big investment banks to independent research shops. Their prediction is based on the supposition that fund managers, which have increasingly been building their own research departments and [...]
Traffic to Thomson IR websites slumps
IN WHAT may be an indication that U.S. IR websites are no longer able to attract and hold the interest of investors, traffic to IR websites hosted by Thomson Financial has slumped to all-time lows, according to the Alexa website information company. Alexa, owned by Amazon.com, measures traffic only of people who have the Alexa [...]
Why blog network’s “open CEO interviews” are a hit
SOME readers might be wondering if I’ve gone completely mad by saying this week’s three-day CEO open interview hosted by blog network Seeking Alpha represents the future of IR. You might be wondering why I am advocating that you put your CEO in front of a group of hardened investors, analysts and finance bloggers — [...]
Throw your CEO under a blog bus
AND IF he or she can withstand the three-day onslaught of probing questions, you will have a highly credible and effective piece of investor relations communication. This free-for-all blog interview is infinitely more credible than the stage-managed Q&A on an earnings conference call, or a broker conference audience, or even a rowdy annual meeting. More [...]
IR website vendors are failing IROs
By Dominic Jones IT TAKES less than 30 seconds for anyone with a browser to set up a website and start publishing and building an audience. They have immediate access to a vast array of free tools to incorporate into their websites, from free email alerts to free video, even free stock charts and market [...]
Should IROs comment on blog posts?
IT’S a question many publicly traded corporations around the world need to answer as investment blogs become more sophisticated and attract greater interest from investors. When a company finds itself the subject of an investment blogger, how should it respond? Indeed, should it respond at all? One company already has its answer. On Tuesday, Chris [...]