Markets

Step 5: Become an Active Participant

By Katy Marquardt, Staff Writer

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, January 2008

As a part owner of a company, you're entitled to ask questions. Some companies are eager to open up to individual investors. If you hold shares of a small company, try calling its executives. Many companies have an investor-relations contact who can help with inquiries and requests. A phone number is usually listed on the Web site or the back of the company's annual report.

You may also want to communicate with other investors. Online bulletin boards can be useful places to share ideas and opinions, post questions or just observe. Keep in mind that while postings can be insightful, they can also be freewheeling, frivolous -- and just plain wrong. After all, you usually don't know who is really composing the message. Is it a well-informed (and well-intentioned) investor? Someone who seems authoritative but isn't? A company shill? A short-seller spreading half-truths? For that reason, you must tread carefully on bulletin boards. (Until the Wall Street Journal blew his cover last summer, one unusually well-informed denizen of Yahoo's message boards was John Mackey, who for years used a pseudonym to comment about Whole Foods Market, the company he founded and still runs.)

One well-monitored site is Clearstation.com, run by E*Trade Financial. Once you register (membership is free), search for posts by ticker symbol. A rating is assigned to the author of each post based on what other users think of the author's picks and comments.

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