Listcorp is expanding its functionality to incorporate record-keeping of investors’ behavioural trends and sentiments, as well as social feedback, in order to strengthen their investment decision-making and confidence in the listed company environment.
Launched last year, Listcorp is an online platform that provides investors free access to simple information on Australian listed companies.
“We think that we’re starting to move the dial on this ‘control’ aspect [that trustees embody] – how to help people feel more comfortable in this listed environment,” Listcorp chief executive John Daly told selfmanagedsuper.
“Clearly more and more money is moving from large funds to SMSFs, but with more than 1 million investors in that group, it’s very difficult [for companies] to find a way to communicate with them, so we believe the only solution is a digital platform and that’s what we’re building on.
“The more they can understand, the more they can engage in the opportunity and take a long-term view on the investment.
“Hopefully that’s the gap that we’re bridging – that gap between companies and investors.”
Daly revealed the next stage for the Listcorp dashboard was to allow investors to save relevant company information and company pages.
“We’ll also show how your sentiment toward the company has changed over time and we’ll cross reference that with what the share price had done because it will be very interesting for investors to see if they’ve been positive on a company for a very long time and whether the share price had gone up or down over that period,” he said.
“Or maybe at a point in time, their view of a company changed significantly, how did that overlap with what the share price has done?
“And if a share price, for example, has fallen for a long period of time and my opinion’s been negative for that period, but all of a sudden I start to see some positive news coming out of the company, I might see that as a good opportunity to buy the stocks.
“Being able to keep a record of those sorts of [trends] and present it in a nice, visual way will really help people track this over a long period of time.”
Listcorp also plans to build in social feedback as a way to provide trustees with some guidance as to how other investors are feeling.
“Let’s say I look at this ASX announcement and click that I think it’s positive news. It will show me what everyone else has thought, so maybe 80 per cent agreed it was positive and 20 per cent thought it was negative,” Daly said.
“This will help me understand what the rest of the world is thinking and it’s one of those realities about stock-market investing – I’m on my own having to make a decision knowing there’s a world of other people out there who are in the same mind or a completely different mind.
“And that uncertainty creates fear, so this is trying to help people feel comfortable because they’re getting some insight into what other people are thinking.”
Listcorp would also look to build an efficient Q&A-type functionality to bring about further investor/company engagement, as up until now, tools to communicate efficiently with investors had been lacking, he noted.
“The interest in Listcorp is growing as the capital moves towards SMSFs and as companies gain a better understanding of the nature of that capital and that it’s long term and committed,” he said.
“And assuming that these investors are treated as owners of the business and communicated with consistently and in a transparent way, they’re very loyal, so hopefully the tools that we’re building here will be the missing link and help companies build those relationships in a much more effective and efficient way.”
