The number of individual investors participating in the stock market continues to increase, and many of them frequently use the Internet to obtain information as there is such a variety available. (1) A company may provide audited and unaudited information on its website. Some of the material is financial; the other can be management's discussion of the future. More information comes from third parties such as analysts, the news media, and other investors.
When it comes to Wall Street, information is essential. (2) With the Internet, millions of people can interact daily and pass along data, factual and rumor-based, including financial accounting information. (3) Online sources for exchanging information include Internet stock market message boards such as those at Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com). Yahoo! Finance had approximately 12 million registered users in February 2006. (4) Despite this large number, limited research has actually been done on the message boards. Prior research primarily concerns the message board relationship with stock price volatility and stock returns. My research has also been limited by interpreting existing message postings. In this study I address the question: "Do message postings have an influence on nonprofessional investors' investment decisions?"
Knowing whether there is an influence is the first step in understanding how these postings may affect a business.
Studies have found that some investors do not understand or even review financial statements. (5) Marc J. Epstein and Moses Pava found that nearly 30% of investors in the United States lack the knowledge necessary to understand basic financial statements, and David F. Hawkins and Barbara A. Hawkins found that more than 50% of investors simply skim over annual reports without performing any formal analysis. (6) Typically, more-experienced investors have a better ability to understand and use unfiltered financial information (e.g., Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) filings), whereas less-experienced investors are more likely to seek help in interpreting the information. (7) To help with either understanding financial reports/earnings information or to gather information that does not come from the company, investors may seek information from third parties such as analysts, the financial news media, and/or message boards. There can be various degrees of accuracy, however, within third-party information. Some of the information is factual and verifiable; other information is rumor-based only. The rumor-based information can make an impact on the market. For example, a financial rumor can spread quickly on the Internet and gain believability, and other sources, such as television and the print news media, have the opportunity to present the item as news. (8) Message boards tend to be a good source for beginning rumors. (9) One instance of using the Yahoo! Finance message board to start a rumor took place in April 1999. An employee of PairGain Technologies, Inc. posted on the message board that PairGain had agreed to be acquired and even included a link to a fake news announcement. PairGain's stock increased more than 30%. (10)
Through an experiment, I tested the influence of a set of message board postings on MBA students' (proxy for nonprofessional investor) investment decisions. I compared the participants' investment decisions before and after the students were exposed to message board postings. Then I compared changes in investments for the participants receiving the message board postings to a control group that made an investment decision based on only the financial data before and after completing a simple distraction task. I hypothesized that the groups receiving message board postings would change their investment decisions. A fourth group received a mixed set of message board postings (equal negative/positive) as a second control group for additional analysis. The results indicated that the biggest influence came from negative message board postings.
This research should help in understanding the influential power of the message boards and the potential effects they can have on nonprofessional investors. It also contains valuable insights for corporations worried about their message boards and Internet rumors.
BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Message Boards
Internet stock message boards are bulletin-board-type sites on the World Wide Web where individuals post messages discussing publicly traded companies. (11) Typically, anyone can read these messages and, after registering with the site host, post messages. A popular host of these message boards is Yahoo! Finance, where most publicly traded companies have message boards dedicated to them. Stock message boards started on Yahoo! Finance in 1997. Postings include questions, factual statements, opinions, rumors, and irrelevant nonsense.
Message boards may run off topic at times, but research has found that most messages posted around earnings announcement time relate to the discussion of the companies and their earnings. (12) These postings include questions, clarifications, and posters' predictions for the future. In 1999-2001, more than 35 million messages were posted on the Yahoo! stock message boards. (13)
The SEC is concerned about individuals buying low-value stocks and "pumping" them up on the message boards by posting positive statements, then, once others have bought the stocks and raised the prices, selling all of their holdings. (14) For other stocks, short-seller activity is of concern. Short-sellers are investors who sell borrowed stock and subsequently close their positions by buying stock back at a later time using the purchased shares to extinguish the initial loan of the stock. (15) Short-sellers profit from a decrease in the stock price. Either situation can be a problem for a company, but businesses typically are more concerned about the negative postings.
Peter D. Wysocki found a relationship between posting volume and short-seller activity--the amount of shares that were reported as being sold short for the month by the firm. (16) Potential evidence of short-seller postings could include when a company has just released great earnings news yet certain postings continue to be negative. For instance, here is one poster's response to Google beating analyst earnings for the first quarter ending March 31, 2006:
ReChart says: OVEREXTENDED-NOTHING ELSE! by: valueplay_2000 Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 04/21/06 12:45 pm IT'LL COME OUT WITHIN WEEK OR TWO THAT THE NUMBERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOWER IN ALL REALITY IF ALL EXPENDITURES WERE TAKEN INTO [ACCOUNT] ... 27% TAX RATE IS WRONG AND 5.3 MILLION ADDITIONAL SHARES ISSUED LAST DAY OF QT 1 SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED TO BEGIN WITH ALSO ALL EXPENSES WERE NOT COUNTED & ARE BEING CARRIED FORWARD TO LATER QT'S ... IT'S WRONG. (Corrected spelling is placed in brackets.)
This particular post is responding to good news from Google in a negative manner, trying to get individuals to sell their stock now. It is not known, but this could represent an individual who sold the stock short and wants the stock price to decrease by disseminating negative information quickly in order to buy the stock back at a lower price.
Many companies are concerned about message postings and are taking active measures to address the issue. (17) These postings may come from employees of the company as well as any outsider. Sometimes these postings are untrue. (18) At other times, postings can be very accurate warnings. (19) These postings and the potential for new postings often lead to companies monitoring employee Internet use at work, monitoring message board postings, and even filing lawsuits. Some marketing experts and public relations firms urge their clients to respond to postings directly on the message boards, although securities lawyers do warn of liability risk. (20) Jonathan Carson and James Felton give an overview of message boards and offer suggestions to corporations dealing with message board postings. (21)
Although message boards are still a relatively new source of information, the number of postings illustrates their popularity. Even then, the postings do not represent all the participants involved with the message boards. The number of lurkers--participants who only read the messages--is impossible to know because most message board sites do not require someone to register before reading message postings. (22) There are multiple reasons someone may come to a message board, including seeking more information, clarification, or anxiety relief, but are investors' decisions influenced by what is posted there? The SEC warns that investors may be influenced negatively and has been taking legal action, and companies are beginning to make serious efforts to monitor and react as the news media claim that message postings can move markets. (23) While the general belief is that message board postings may influence individual investors, there is a gap within the academic literature actually looking at this potential influence. Understanding the potential influence these messages have on investors may help the accounting profession understand how different sources of information affect investors. It may also help regulators evaluate how much focus they need to place on message boards.
Rumors
Rumors have long been a part of society. While the word "rumor" often has a negative connotation, rumors may contain fact-based information or be completely false, but the main component is that the information is unconfirmed. (24) More specifically, rumor has been defined as information that is not verified, is of local or current interest or importance, and is intended primarily for belief. (25)
Rumors can cause damage and are a concern within the financial community. (26) Even when individuals admitted that they knew that rumors were from perceived noncredible sources, the rumor information affected the investors' stock trading activity. (27) In their study, Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia had subjects participate in an investment simulation. Subjects were presented with:
* The stock price alone,
* The stock price and The Wall Street Journal news stories,
* The stock price and published rumors from The Wall Street Journal "Heard on the Street Column," or
* Stock price and rumors from brother-in-law Harry.
Despite subjects rating the credibility of the rumors as lower than that of the news stories, trading based on the information was similar to those with the news stories and less regressive than those that received no additional information. While the study investigated rumors from known sources (i.e., the brother-in-law or The Wall Street Journal), the message board postings that I investigated in the current study come from unknown sources.
An investment decision is essentially a prediction of future events. Uncertainty clouds these future events, and investors search out information in an attempt to lessen this uncertainty or feel more confident in their decisions. One reason that rumors may have influential power is that they create a plausible story to explain situations that may be confusing, uncertain, or ambiguous. (28) Earnings announcement time is an uncertain and ambiguous situation, and some message board postings attempt to create a plausible story. The story may have malicious intentions, be a warning of bad things to come, foretell a positive future, or simply attempt to clarify confusing financial data.
Stock message board postings increase and become more focused on companies and their earnings during these announcement periods. (29) In fact, message board discussions can turn into in-depth debates about a company's financial reports. (30) Like rumors, message board postings can vary in content, but they are mostly not verified (contain future predictions), they are relevant to the current interest (the company for which the message board is about), and the posting is usually intended for others to believe. Also, message board postings are generally considered to be financial rumors. (31) In a time of uncertainty, rumors are often believed and influence actions. (32) Considering message board postings as a type of rumor leads to my primary hypothesis (in alternative form):
H1: Subjects given positive or negative message board postings will change their investment in the company more than those who do not receive any postings.
In this study, I proposed that message board postings would influence some subjects because they are financial rumors. If the rumor had a positive implication, then the subject would increase his or her amount of investment in the stock versus what he/she would invest before reading the postings. If the rumor had a negative implication, then the subject would decrease the amount of investment in the stock compared to what he/she would invest before reading the postings.
METHODOLOGY
I used 110 MBA students for this study. Although the focus was on nonprofessional investors, it was difficult to recruit and use members directly from this group, even though many studies have used MBA students as a proxy for nonprofessional investors. (33) The students came from multiple universities, and I asked program directors and professors teaching MBA classes at these universities if I could talk with the students. I asked the students to participate voluntarily in the experiment either on their own time in a lab setting (n=35) or through the Internet (n=75). Participants included 43 females and 67 males, they averaged 4.24 years of investing experience, and they had taken 2.24 accounting courses and 1.87 finance classes.
Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups (no message board, n=24; positive message board, n=31; negative message board, n=26; and mixed message board, n=29) and were presented access to materials through a computer task. All subjects were directed to a website to view financial information for a company in which they were told they currently have an investment. After reviewing the financial information, subjects in each group were asked to make an investment decision. Each subject was asked to increase, decrease, or maintain his/her current investment in increments of 100 shares.
After the subjects made their investment decisions, they were asked a series of questions to determine their attitude about the investment. Next, subjects in the control group were asked to complete an unrelated task, and the message board groups were asked to complete the same unrelated task and review some message board postings related to the company. The message board groups were separated into one group who received messages that had an overall negative tone, a second group who received messages that had an overall positive tone, and a third group who received a mixed set of messages. (34) The messages in the mixed group had an equal weighting of negative- and positive-toned messages. (35) This mixed-message group acted as a second form of control group in order to make additional comparisons.
After completing this step, subjects in all groups had the opportunity to review the original financial information again before being asked to make the investment decision one more time. After the students made their investment decision, the computer program moved to a questionnaire. At this point, subjects were not able to go back and access any previous material. The questionnaire was used to assess additional information related to another study and to gather related basic demographic information and perform related manipulation checks. After the students completed the questionnaire, the computer program allowed for automatic storing of the responses, and the subjects were presented a website that confirmed their submissions and thanked them for their participation. (See Table 1 for the steps involved.)
For motivation, subjects were entered into a lottery for a chance at winning one of 10 $75 gift cards. Their number of entries was based on their performance and effort as compared to the other participants. Performance was based on the profitability of the participant's final investment decision. The participant had a choice to buy up to 400 more shares, hold his/her current position, or sell up to all 400 shares. The value not invested in the company was invested in a low-risk government security, and all investments were sold at the end of six months. Because the financial information was adapted from a real company, the profitability of the investment was based on the price of the investment six months from the date of the information presented. Effort was based on the students' answers during the distraction task (a series of investment questions with right and wrong answers) and the time they spent on the investment decision. Subjects received a maximum of five entries and a minimum of one for participating.
The Message Board
The message board used in this experiment was adapted from messages actually posted on a company's message board on Yahoo! Finance. Messages in the positive group were matched with the messages in the negative group to create a relative balance in the degree of positive and negative. A normal message board would require a user to click on a message to read it and then have the ability to read thousands of messages posted since 1997, but, for experimental purposes, this message board was a sample list of eight postings presented in a date order on the screen. Although I could not force a subject to actually read the messages, I did eliminate the need to click on messages because this study was not concerned with information search strategy--just whether the postings could influence decisions. As an attempt to encourage the participants to read the messages, they were not able to continue to the next screen until one minute had expired. (See Table 2 for a sample of the messages.)
My study compared changes in investment decisions between subjects who received message board postings and subjects who did not receive the postings. I further investigated differences between the control group and the individual message board group to determine if negative or positive postings have more influence.
RESULTS
Table 3 describes the amount of investment change in the four groups. The average change in investment was different across groups, with a p-value or level of significance below 0.05. The control group (no message board group) was compared with the three message board groups, and only the negative message board group was significantly different (mean difference = -248.72, significant at the 0.05 level). Multiple comparisons performed at a 0.05 significance level found that the negative message board group was significantly different from all other groups and that the positive and mixed groups were significantly different from each other.
The results indicated that, for this particular stock, the negative postings had influence on the investor subjects but the positive postings did not. This is contrary to the SEC belief about the "pump and dump" model. The explanation could be the difference in the price of the stock. The stock in this study was originally purchased at $17.37, and the current trading price was listed at $23.76. Most of the "pump and dump" discussions have involved penny stocks (or very low-priced stocks).
Using a seven-point Likert scale to ask subjects their perception of the tone of the messages (1=positive, 7=negative), I conducted a manipulation check to verify that subjects receiving message postings viewed the postings correctly. The negative group averaged a score of 5.81, and the positive group averaged a score of 2.87. Table 4 provides the descriptive statistics for the manipulation check. The perceived tone between the negative and positive groups was significantly different (t=8.469, p<.001), and each group's mean was significantly different from the midpoint of 4 (positive t= -5.479, p<.001; negative t=6.269, p<.001). I conducted further analysis to check for differences between universities, gender, and lab versus online and found no significant differences.
FUTURE STUDIES ARE NEEDED
It was hypothesized that message boards influence nonprofessional investors' investment decisions. This study found that only negative postings influenced this particular investment decision. Future studies should look further into the differences between positive and negative postings in relation to stock price. The SEC has initiated investigations based on individuals manipulating stock prices up through postings on message boards, and this may be a more serious case for lower-priced stock. This study provides evidence that, at least for similarly priced stocks, negative message board postings may be a concern because they caused subjects to decrease their investment. If postings from an unreliable anonymous source can cause investors to change their investment decisions, then more-credible rumors should have even more influence. Negative messages may be a result of short-sellers trying to drive the stock price down or individuals upset with the company.
There are many options for future research in this area. One option is to look at the effect of investing experience and expertise. Carson and Felton even cite cases where analysts admit to looking at message boards. (36) There may be a more serious problem if, unknowingly, postings influence expert investors.
Another area of interest may be to see whether investors are aware of the influence that a message has on them and why there is this influence.
As with most experimental research, there were limitations to this study. I only looked at one stock and provided only limited information to make the stock investment decision. There is a possibility that the lack of reliable information caused subjects to use the message boards, but, despite this lack of additional information, only the negative group was influenced by noncredible information. This provides evidence that it was the messages that influenced them rather than
a lack of credible information. There should be additional studies done to investigate the differences of message board influence based on stock prices; this study was limited to one stock because this was only an initial investigation.
Despite various limitations, however, this study does provide valuable information to accountants and financial managers. While the general belief would be that information would have influence, this study found that only negative message boards caused investment change. This leads to the need for more research to better understand these influences so that:
* Investors can better understand the information they use to make decisions,
* Information providers can better understand what information investors need,
* Regulators can help protect investors, and
* Corporations can know how much time and effort they need to place in monitoring their message boards.
The next step is to figure out why this rumor-type information influences individual investors and how to mitigate potential damaging effects from negative message board rumors.
ENDNOTES
(1) Frank Hodge and Maarten Pronk, "The Impact of Expertise and Investment Familiarity on Investors' Use of Online Financial Report Information," Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Summer 2006; NYSE, Shareownership 2000, NYSE, New York, N.Y., 2000.
(2) Frederick Koenig, Rumor in the Marketplace, Auburn House Publishing, Dover, Del., 1985.
(3) Ralph L. Rosnow, "Rumor and Gossip in Interpersonal Interaction and Beyond: A Social Exchange Perspective," Behaving Badly, edited by R.M. Kowalski, American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., 2001, pp. 203-232; Peter D. Wysocki, Cheap Talk on the Web: The Determinants of Postings on Stock Message Boards, MIT, 1999, p. 34; Hodge and Pronk, Summer 2006.
(4) "Yahoo Upgrades Finance Portal," Red Herring, April 4, 2006.
(5) Jacob M. Rose, "The Effects of Multimedia-Induced Affective States on Recall and Decision-Making by Individual Investors," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, January 2001, pp. 41-46; Jacob M. Rose, Douglas Roberts, and Anna M. Rose, "Affective Responses to Financial Data and Multimedia: The Effects of Information Load and Cognitive Load," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, May 2004, pp. 5-24; Marc J. Epstein and Moses Pava, "Individual Investors' Perceptions on the Summary Annual Report: a Survey Approach," Journal of Applied Business Research, 1994, pp. 60-67.
(6) David F. Hawkins and Barbara A. Hawkins, The Effectiveness of the Annual Report as a Communication Vehicle, Financial Executives Research Foundation, Morristown, N.J., 1986; Epstein and Pava, 1994.
(7) W. Brooke Elliott, Frank Hodge, and Kevin E. Jackson, "The Association Between Non-Professional Investors' Information Choices and Their Portfolio Returns: The Importance of Investing Experience," Contemporary Accounting Research, Summer 2008, pp. 473-498; Hodge and Pronk, Summer 2006.
(8) Allan J. Kimmel, "Rumors and The Financial Marketplace," The Journal of Behavioral Finance, October 2004, pp. 134-141.
(9) Peter D. Wysocki, "Investor Relations and Stock Message Boards," MIT, 1999 [cited 4/21/2006]; available from http://mit.edu/wysockip/www/535/webchat.pdf.
(10) Allan J. Kimmel, Rumors and Rumor Control, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, N.J., 2004; David Leinweber and Ananth Madhavan, "Three Hundred Years of Stock Market Manipulations," The Journal of Investing, Summer 2001, pp. 1-10.
(11) Wysocki, Cheap Talk on the Web.
(12) Ibid.; Sanjiv Das, Francisco deAsis Martinez-Jerez, and Peter Tufano, "eInformation: A Clinical Study of Investor Discussion and Sentiment," Financial Management, Autumn 2005, pp. 103-137.
(13) Werner Antweiler and Murray Z. Frank, Internet Stock Message Boards and Stock Returns, University of British Columbia, 2002, p. 31.
(14) Donald Langevoort, "Taming the Animal Spirits of the Stock Markets: A Behavioral Approach to Securities Regulation," Northwestern University Law Review, 2002, pp. 135-188.
(15) Wysocki, Cheap Talk on the Web.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Blake Bell, "Dealing with False Internet Rumors: a Corporate Primer," Wallstreetlawyer.com, December 1998 [cited 4/20/2006], available from http://library.findlaw.com/1999/ Aug/1/130891.html; James A. Burns, Jr., "Battling the Unknown: Online 'Cybersmears' by Anonymous Employees," Employee Relations Law Journal, Autumn 2002, pp. 47-71.
(18) Burns, Autumn 2002.
(19) James Felton and Jongchai Kim, "Warnings from the Enron Message Board," Journal of Investing, Fall 2002, pp. 29-52; William Cast, Going South, Dearborn Trade Publishing, Chicago, Ill., 2005.
(20) Bell, December 1998.
(21) Jonathan Carson and James Felton, "New Technology Issues for Corporate Governance: Internet Message Boards," International Corporate Governance, second edition, Euromoney Books, 2004, pp. 184-194.
(22) Wysocki, Cheap Talk on the Web.
(23) Werner Antweiler and Murray Z. Frank, "Is All That Talk Just Noise? The Information Content of Internet Stock Message Boards," The Journal of Finance, June 2004, pp. 1,259-1,294.
(24) Article titles such as "When Those Nasty Rumors Start Breeding on the Web, You've Got to Move Fast" (Allan Pell Crawford, Public Relations Journal, January 1, 1999) illustrate the negative connotation surrounding rumors.
(25) Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia, "Rumor and Prediction: Making Sense (But Losing Dollars) in the Stock Market," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, September 1997, pp. 329-353.
(26) Kimmel, "Rumors and the Financial Marketplace."
(27) DiFonzo and Bordia, September 1997.
(28) Ibid.
(29) Das, et al., Autumn 2005.
(30) Peter D. Wysocki, Private Information, Earnings Announcements and Trading Volume, MIT, 2000, p. 29.
(31) Kimmel, "Rumors and the Financial Marketplace."
(32) Rosnow, 2001.
(33) W. Brooke Elliott, Frank Hodge, Jane Kennedy, and Maarten Pronk, "Are MBA Students a Good Proxy for Nonprofessional Investors?" The Accounting Review, January 2007, pp. 139-168.
(34) In a separate experiment, messages were tested to determine the participants' perception of degree of positive or negative tone. Subjects were asked to evaluate the tone in terms of the messages' relation to the financial information in the quarterly press release. The goal was to have the set of negative messages to be equivalent to the set of positive messages in terms of their positive/negative tone. In addition, subjects in the final experiment were asked a manipulation check question as to their perception of the overall tone of the message board.
(35) I controlled for order effect by splitting the mixed-message group into half where one group received messages that began and ended with a negative message and the other received messages that began and ended with a positive message; no significant differences were found between the groups.
(36) Carson and Felton, 2004.
Letitia Meier Pleis, Ph.D., CMA, CFM, CPA, is an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting at Metropolitan State College of Denver and a member of IMA's Denver-Centennial Chapter. She can be contacted at (303) 556-3183 and lpleis@mscd.edu.
Table 1: Task Steps No Message Positive Negative Mixed Board Message Message MessageGroup Posting Board Posting Board Posting Board PostingStep 1 Given Financial DataStep 2 Make Investment DecisionStep 3 Investment Attitude MeasurementStep 4 Distraction Talk--General Investment QuestionsStep 5 Go to Given Positive Given Negative Given Mixed Step 6 Message Board Message Board Message Board Postings Postings PostingsStep 6 Opportunity to Review Financial Information AgainStep 7 Make Second Investment DecisionStep 8 Attitude QuestionnaireStep 9 Perception QuestionsStep 10 Demographic QuestionsTable 2: PostingsPostings (negative group received negative postings, positive groupreceived positive postings, mixed groups received an equal mix ofnegative and positive postings)Spin ... Spin ... Spin (negative)24-Jul-06 05:29 pmPosted by: InvestorMikeAs subscribers go up they make less money. 2% margins are not worthgetting excited about. This will be as good as it gets, sell nowand find something with a better future.Come and gone (negative)24-Jul-06 08:27pmPosted by: Fill-the-GapsThe time has come and gone for QuickGames. They had a good run, butgrowth is slowing, guidance is weakening, and competition is gettingstronger. They missed some key expectations and the stock is goingto be punished for it. Sell as quickly as possible.This does not take a rocket scientist! (negative)24-Jul-06 09:19 pmPosted by: Fill-the-GapsWith increasing cost to obtain a new subscriber, year over yeargrowth prospects slowing down, and new forms of competition comingfrom all over, I'd wager a month's pension that in 5yrs there willbe nothing left.Future looks dull (negative)24-Jul-06 11:51pmPosted by: ForwardLookerQuickgames has horrible potential. There is no value in theirservices. While it may only be $5.99 a month to download games, thegames are sub par as compared to the new console games. You get whatyou pay for. An x-box 360 game may cost $60, but the quality is farsuperior. People want quality, just look at the increase insubscriber acquisition cost and the decrease in gross margin fromthe 1st qtr.Spin ... Spin ... Spin (positive)24-Jul-06 05:29 pmPosted by: InvestorMikeSubscriptions are up, now it is time for QCKG to make money off ofthem. 2% margins are good, but there is potential for more. Thingscan only get better, buy now QCKG has a good future.strong report but guidance was weak (neutral)24-Jul-06 05:55 pmPosted by: InterestedStreetGuruAnalysts had lots of questions during the conference call as to whythe guidance was weak given this Q was strong; their answers couldhave been better. The numbers weren't that bad; Still lots of growthyr/yr, but in this market if there is even a whiff of bad news,everyone fires first and asks questions later. It may just need tocome down to how much of a gamble are you willing to takeCome and going (positive)24-Jul-06 08:27pmPosted by: Fill-the-GapsThe time is now for Quickgames. They have been doing good, but growthis about to really take off. Not much guidance, but they are ready todeal with new competition. They hit some key expectations and thestock is going to be rewarded for it. Buy as quickly as possible.This does not take a rocket scientist! (positive)24-Jul-06 09:19 pmPosted by: Fill-the-GapsWith a boatload of cash, positive year over year growth prospects,and a competitive market'first-mover'-advantage, I'd wager a month'spension this is an easy 5 year double.Future looks bright (positive)24-Jul-06 11:51pmPosted by: ForwardLookerQuickgames has good potential. The value for the services is great.Where X-box 360 games cost approx. $60 to buy, QCKG offers a varietyof games for download starting at only $5.99 a month. People areseeing this value, just look at the yr over yr subscriber growth andrevenue.Table 3: Investment Change Std. Std.Group N Mean Deviation Error MeanControl 24 33.33 240.772 49.147Negative 26 -215.38 236.123 46.307Positive 31 58.06 108.855 19.551Mixed 29 -75.86 166.165 30.856Table 4: Positive Tone/Negative Tone(1 = positive, 7 = negative) Std.Group Mean N Deviation MedianMixed 4.6207 29 1.42463 5Negative 5.8077 26 1.47022 6Positive 2.8710 31 1.14723 3Total 4.3488 86 1.80044 4
