Investing for the Future
Investors are the owners of any public company. It is extremely important for an organization to keep a transparent line of communication open with their stakeholders. Through the years, a list of investor relations objectives have been defined. Companies must strive to explain their vision and strategy, ensure the expectations of the company's stock and work to reduce stock price volatility. All of these in concert will help the company to continually and consistently compete for capital.
There are two types of investors. Institutional investors hold large chunks of stock and trade actively while individual investors use company stock to benefit their own short and long term financial goals. Investors of all kinds learn about various options through intermediaries. Three types of such intermediaries are the media, which covers businesses and effect their stock, sell-side analysts who work either with financial firms or buy-side analysts who provide stock analysis to financial firms and ratings agencies, which determine "creditworthiness" of specified organizations.
It is important for organizations to create an investor relations program. Investor relations can work from inside an organization or from an outsourced agency. These programs are decided upon based on the size of a firm and its objectives for investor relations. Many companies in today's business climate have investor relations pages on their corporate websites. As we learned through the in-class assignment, all potential avenues of investor interest, from financial reports to investor contacts are available to help fully define the organization's objectives.
There are two types of investors. Institutional investors hold large chunks of stock and trade actively while individual investors use company stock to benefit their own short and long term financial goals. Investors of all kinds learn about various options through intermediaries. Three types of such intermediaries are the media, which covers businesses and effect their stock, sell-side analysts who work either with financial firms or buy-side analysts who provide stock analysis to financial firms and ratings agencies, which determine "creditworthiness" of specified organizations.
It is important for organizations to create an investor relations program. Investor relations can work from inside an organization or from an outsourced agency. These programs are decided upon based on the size of a firm and its objectives for investor relations. Many companies in today's business climate have investor relations pages on their corporate websites. As we learned through the in-class assignment, all potential avenues of investor interest, from financial reports to investor contacts are available to help fully define the organization's objectives.
How I See it
After reading a glowing recommendation in Kiplinger magazine, I recently purchased my first stock. While my investment was not much, I was very impressed with the company's communication. From the outside looking in (as a non-investor), I sometimes forgot that shareholders of a company are the owners of the organization. After buying in, my inbox is periodically pinged with company updates, invites to shareholder seminars and long-term strategies. It is a welcome bit of personal confidence in an otherwise anonymous world that a company goes lengths to update even its smallest shareholders on the company's goals.
A friend of mine is an aforementioned buy-side analyst. While his knowledge of finance far exceeds my competence, it is interesting to speak with him about investing, especially in this time of financial crisis. He often tells stories of his meetings with clients and their personal concerns in regards to their investments. And, at the same time, I like hearing about the stocks I should "definitely" buy or ones I should "avoid at all costs," even though I do not have an extra cent to budget towards investing. Maybe one day, right?
A friend of mine is an aforementioned buy-side analyst. While his knowledge of finance far exceeds my competence, it is interesting to speak with him about investing, especially in this time of financial crisis. He often tells stories of his meetings with clients and their personal concerns in regards to their investments. And, at the same time, I like hearing about the stocks I should "definitely" buy or ones I should "avoid at all costs," even though I do not have an extra cent to budget towards investing. Maybe one day, right?
Links
This link discusses the impending lawsuits that will be filed against Lehman Brothers for disseminating false information before the company's collapse. While the result will likely bring more shame to the Lehman name, times like these show the importance of an IR department.
The following video features Ken Brause, executive VP of investor relations of his company, CIT, discussing CIT's strategy of using new media such as podcasts to communicate with investors:
The following video features Ken Brause, executive VP of investor relations of his company, CIT, discussing CIT's strategy of using new media such as podcasts to communicate with investors:
4 comments:
Caesy's blog is fun,colorful, and full of interesting video clips. In addition the blog is informative. My favorite video clip is under the crisis communication subtitle. The video described a crisis communications plan as knowing "where the flash light is before the lights go out". The video gives an idea in what should be included in such a plan. I am glad that under the investor relations work experience to see that you are a new investor and feel comforted by the communications provided by the company that you own.
The summaries go above and beyond, and overall great job!
This blog has some really great elements. The whole blog in general is well stated, interesting, flows nicely, and is just overall great to read, but the pictures make the blog. The header pictures are so well thought out from the Jordan silhouette to the president's red phone all of them were poignant and a couple of them are actually quite aesthetic. As for the articles I really enjoyed the twitter/flickr article and the McCain piece. The paper vs. electronic was pretty funny as well. Also, it took all my strength to stop playing with the "Energyville" game. Only because I need to study... it is bookmarked, though.
This blog by Casey is very very interesting to read. The flow is very good. All are organized into nice paragraphs. The best of all is his inclusion of pictures and video clips that made the whole blog very joyful to read.
Not a big deal, but I had to take some time to find out his part on the real world experiences. A heading like 'My experiences' might have been more helpful but again it could be me.
I was surprised as to how he candidly criticized his company's way of advertising themselves.
On the whole I loved to read his blog and well done for a great job.
I enjoyed reading this blog, because of the short relevant personal experiences explained with each chapter and the strategic use of graphics and video clips. Casey had an interesting interpretation of how to add the links into his blog and I like the way they were integrated into his stories and explanations.
His intercultural communications blog brought my attention to something I had not thought of before. He talks about using foreign languages in the US to improve US business relationships. However, I had in the past strictly associates coming in contact with foreign languages with travel foreign countries. -Lynn
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