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Online Tech Stocks Advice Launched For Private Investors

Lisa Ugur, Tax-news.com, London

31 October 2000

UK company Equity Investigator, a Internet-based research house, has launched an online service providing research-driven advice on technology stocks for experienced private investors. The company claims the service, whereby analysts give advice previously only available to professional investors, is the first of its kind.

Regulated by the SFA to make investment recommendations and staffed by City experts, Equity Investigator provides detailed company profiles on 120 technology stocks. Karine Luckraft, the company's co-founder and a former stockbroker, said: 'There is a lack of fundamental research analysis available to private investors. There are a lot of people who bought technology stocks in the bull market earlier this year and are now wondering which ones they should sell. They are terrified of getting that wrong. This is where we will come in very useful.'

Ms Luckraft says that the advice broking firms offer is compromised by their increasing dependence on their corporate finance arms, which work for, or wish to work for, many of the companies being analysed. She commented: 'Private investors may not know that, even if they can get the brokerage research, that a 'buy' doesn't necessarily mean a buy and that 'hold' means sell.'

Equity Investigator is a privately-owned startup and has no commercial relationship with the firms it researches. The company claims that it will often be the only independent source of research and opinions in these stocks. Trading of shares will not take place on the site and the company also does not plan to accept advertising. With five full-time analysts from London brokerages, the service costs £200 for the first year's subscription. All the stocks covered by it carry full research notes, forecasts and recommendations.

Equity Investigator will initially concentrate on technology stocks listed on techMARK, Aim and Ofex but may later add telecoms companies to its coverage. Ms Luckraft said the analysis will not be "dumbed down", and will appeal to the more sophisticated investors. Equity Investigator aims to market its services to members of investment clubs, say those aged between 35 and 50 with large disposable incomes, and the retired so-called "silver surfers".

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