May Survey Results

STOCK MARKET OVERPRICED ACCORDING TO LATEST ON-LINE SURVEY

A Majority of Participants in A Month Long On-line Survey of Investor Attitudes Believe Today's Stock Market is Ready For A Fall

(Plymouth, MI) -- The majority of participants in a month-long, on-line survey of investor attitudes, conducted by the investor relations firm of Rein Nomm & Associates, Inc., believe that today's stock market is overpriced. The survey consisted of five questions designed to determine prevailing attitudes about such investor topics as: the current state of the stock market, the value of the Internet as a timely informational resource, the long term investment merits of recent Internet IPO's (Netscape, Yahoo, et al),the need for more stringent securities regulations, and the quality of financial reporting today.The month-long survey generated responses from 380 participants from nine countries. The vast majority of respondents, however, were from the U.S.

Asked whether they believed today's stock market to be overpriced, under priced or fairly priced, 61% of the respondents said it was overpriced, 11% felt it was under priced and 28% believed the current market to be fairly priced.

When asked about the long-term investment merits or "staying power" of recent Internet stock initial public offerings, which would include companies such as Netscape and Yahoo, 73% of the respondents believed that they have "staying power" while 27% did not.

Asked if the Internet was a good source of timely information about publicly traded companies, a large majority of participants, 76%, believed that it was, while 24% felt it was not.

When asked whether securities regulations should be made more or less stringent, 63% of the respondents indicated that they should be more stringent while 37% believed they should be made less stringent.

Finally, the survey participants were asked to evaluate the quality of financial reporting in the 1990's in terms of whether it had improved or declined. Although this question received the lowest response rate (61) of the five questions on the survey, the respondents were unanimous (100%) in their opinion that financial reporting has improved in the '90's.

 

June Survey Results

ANALYSTS' REPORTS KEY TO VAST MAJORITY OF STOCK BUY DECISIONS

Large Majority of Participants in On-line Investor Survey Base Their Stock Purchases on Analysts' Reports

(Plymouth, MI) -- The vast majority of participants in a month-long, on-line survey of investor opinions, conducted by the Plymouth Michigan investor relations firm of Rein Nomm & Associates, Inc., favor security analysts' reports as the most important factor in their selection of a company's stock. This month's survey consisted of five questions designed to determine prevailing attitudes about such investor topics as: factors effecting a stock purchase decision, acceptable annual rates of return on common stocks, length of time investors are willing to hold a stock to achieve an acceptable ROI, preference for on-line versus printed annual reports and the perceived importance of annual reports today as sources of investment information. This month's survey had a total of 491 respondents.

Q 1. Asked which of four factors (broker recommendation, analyst's report, news item or tip from a friend) was most important in their decision to purchase a company's stock, 76.9% of the respondents said they were most influenced by an analysts report, 15.5% selected their stockbroker, 7.6% indicted a tip from a friend and none said they picked stocks on the basis of media coverage.

Q 2. When asked what they regarded as an acceptable rate of return on a common stock investment (5-10%, 10-15%, 15-20%, or 20+%), 52.8% of the respondents indicated 10-15%, 28.9% said 20+%, 15.8% selected 10-15% and 2.5% said 5-10%.

Q 3. Asked how long they were willing to wait to achieve an acceptable return on their stock investment (3-6 months, 6-12 months, 1-2 years or 2-5 years), 33.3% responded 1-2 years, 27.7% said they would wait as long as 2-5 years, 22.2% were willing to wait only 3-6 months and 16.6% would wait 6-12 months.

Q 4. When asked which type of annual report they would prefer (an interactive on-line report or a printed report), 66.7% of the respondents indicated that they preferred an on-line annual report while 33.3% liked the traditional printed report.

Q 5. Finally, survey participants were asked to evaluate the importance of annual reports as a source of investor information today (is it more or less important). A large majority, 76.9% said that the annual report was more important while only 23.1% indicated that it was less important as a source of investment information.

 

July Survey Results

FOR NETVESTORS THE LESS INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP OF A STOCK THE BETTER

An Overwhelming Majority of Participants in On-line Investor Survey Prefer Stocks With Institutional Ownership of Less Than 25%

(Plymouth, MI) -- The vast majority of participants in a month-long, on-line survey of investor opinions, conducted by the Plymouth Michigan investor relations firm of Rein Nomm & Associates, Inc., indicated a preference for purchasing stocks with low levels of institutional ownership, reflecting the individual investors' continued concern about a market dominated by large institutions

. The July survey consisted of five questions designed to determine prevailing attitudes about such investor topics as: acceptable levels of institutional ownership of a stock, length of time investors are willing to wait for a company to improve its performance, interest in participating in on-line annual meetings, financial information delivery preferences, and the average time spent reading an annual report. The July survey had a total of 277 responses.

THE FEWER INSTITUTIONAL OWNERS THE BETTER
Q 1. Asked what level of institutional ownership they would prefer in a stock that they are thinking of buying, 62% of the respondents selected 25%, 23% selected 10%, and 15% indicated a preference for 50% institutional ownership.

TROUBLED STOCKS GIVEN A YEAR OR LESS TO TURN THINGS AROUND OR ELSE
Q 2. When asked how long they would be willing to wait for a company's performance to improve before giving up and selling the stock, an overwhelming majority of survey respondents (85%) said they would wait no more than a year. Of this group, 14% would wait only 3 months before selling the stock, 33% indicated a willingness to wait 6 months and 38% were willing to wait a whole year. Only 14% of the respondents were willing to wait 2 years or more for a company to turn around its earnings performance.

ON-LINE ANNUAL MEETINGS PROMISE TO BE SRO
Q 3. Asked if they would be more or less likely to participate in an annual meeting if it were on-line, almost all survey respondents (92%) indicated that they would be more likely to attend, while only 8% said that they would be less likely to attend.

NETVESTORS SAY SAVE THE POSTAGE AND E-MAIL FINANCIAL INFORMATION
Q 4. When asked how they would prefer to receive information from companies in which they own stock, 71% of the participants preferred e-mail dissemination of information (i.e., news releases, quarterly reports, etc.) while 21% preferred regular mail and 8% preferred to receive no mail at all from the company.

ANNUAL REPORTS HOLD THE ATTENTION OF NETVESTORS
Q 5. Contrary to the widely held view that the average investor spends less than 3 minutes reading the annual report of a company in which they own stock, the majority of Netvestors (63%) said that they spend 30 minutes reviewing an annual report, while 26% indicated that they spent 5 minutes and 11% spent 1 minute or less reviewing an annual report.

 

 

August Survey Results

NETVESTORS BELIEVE THE MARKET HAS BOTTOMED OUT

A Vast Majority of Participants in On-line Investor Survey Expect Stocks to Either Move Up or Remain Unchanged for Remainder of the Year

(Plymouth, MI) -- An overwhelming majority of participants in a month-long, on-line survey of investor opinions, conducted by the Plymouth Michigan investor relations firm of Rein Nomm & Associates, Inc., indicated that they believed stock prices had bottomed out and now would either continue to move up or remain unchanged for the remainder of the year.

The August survey (a new survey is posted monthly on the Investor Relations NetSources web site at http://users.aol.com/netir/rna-ir1.htm) consisted of five questions designed to determine prevailing attitudes about such investor topics as: the future direction of the stock market, the fairness of CEO compensation, the relative importance of three factors effecting stock purchase decisions, the publications regarded as the best source of investment information, and preferable levels of management stock ownership. The August survey had a total of 201 responses.

NETVESTORS THINK THE MARKET HAS BOTTOMED OUT
Q 1. Asked about what direction the market is headed between now and the end of the year, 45% of the respondents selected said it would go up, 30% thought it would move sideways, and only 25% believed that it would go down.

CEOs GETTING TOO MUCH FOR TOO LITTLE
Q 2. When asked if CEOs of publicly traded companies were fairly compensated relative to company performance, a majority of survey respondents (59%) said CEOs were overpaid, 43% felt they were fairly compensated and none thought they were underpaid.

QUALITY OF MANAGEMENT IS KEY INVESTMENT FACTOR
Q 3. Asked which of three factors they regarded as most important in determining a stock purchase, 57% of survey respondents indicated the quality of management, 43% selected the stock's Price Earnings ratio and none selected a company's market share.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL RATED AS BEST SOURCE OF INVESTMENT INFORMATION
Q 4. When asked to select the best source of investment information from among four leading business publications, 53% of the participants preferred THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, 24% selected BARRONS, 18% picked FORBES, and 6% indicated BUSINESS WEEK.

NETVESTORS PREFER LIMITED MANAGEMENT STOCK OWNERSHIP
Q.5 Asked what level of management stock ownership they would prefer in a stock they are thinking of buying, 50% of survey respondents indicated 25% level of ownership, 32% said 10% and 18% preferred 50% management ownership.