NEW YORK, Dec 1, 1999 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Ameritrade Holding
Corporation (Nasdaq: AMTD) today launched the first daily measurement
of how individual investors are participating in the stock market - the
Ameritrade Online Investor Index.
The Index, which is available at www.AmeritradeIndex.com to Ameritrade
customers and the public beginning today, shows whether online
investors at Ameritrade are net buyers or sellers on a given day, along
with the top 10 equities bought and sold.
Ameritrade developed the Index in conjunction with Dr. Nicholas Polson,
professor of econometrics and statistics at The University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business, and a leading expert on market behavior
and modeling.
The Index was unveiled at a news conference today in New York. "There
has been much speculation about how individual online investors are
participating in and affecting the markets, much of it flat-out wrong,"
said Joe Ricketts, chairman and co-chief executive officer of
Ameritrade.
"The Ameritrade Online Investor Index is the first actual measure of
the activity and behavior of online investors, who have become a truly
powerful, self-empowered force that is revolutionizing our capital
markets for the better," Ricketts said. This thought is echoed by Dr.
Polson: "Online investors are becoming an important part of the
investment landscape. As a group, they are investors that make their
own investment decisions, and the Ameritrade Online Investor Index
provides a look at what they are doing."
The Ameritrade Index will be calculated and available several hours
after the regular market close. It will feature a chart of the current
day's Index, as well as a listing of the top 10 buys and sells for that
day.
Ameritrade, Inc. customers and visitors to the site also will be able
to compare the Index to other leading market indices, such as the Dow
Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq 100, Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the NYSE
indices.
"The Ameritrade Index will provide investors and analysts with
important, new information about a significant and growing group of
investors," according to Dr. Polson. "A recent study by Robertson
Stephens shows online investors with a 37 percent share of the retail
brokerage market. This represents about 9.7 million online brokerage
accounts and $500 billion in assets. This quarter alone, one million
accounts may be added to the online ranks. While there is a lot of
market data, there is little good information specifically on what the
online investors are doing," according to Polson.
The Index is calculated as a percentage, dividing the number of buyers
of equities by the total numbers of buyers and sellers of equities on a
given day. Thus, if the Index were 60 percent, 60 percent of all buyers
and sellers that day would have been buyers, and, conversely, 40
percent sellers.
Certain technical adjustments have been made to eliminate day-trading
and partials (multiple purchases of one stock in a day). In addition,
the Index is market value weighted, so that the purchase and sale of
stocks priced below $5.00 do not unduly influence the Index.
The Index lists both the individual stocks that make up the top 10
buys/sells and the actual percentage each stock represents.
"Most Internet indices measure the stock price movement of a specific
basket of Internet company stocks. The Ameritrade Online Investor Index
is different and unique. It measures what online investors are actually
doing on a daily basis," said Thomas K. Lewis, Jr., co-chief executive
officer of Ameritrade. Lewis added that the data is drawn in aggregate
from Ameritrade, Inc. databases. Individual account information is not
relevant to the calculation and complete confidentiality is maintained
at all times.
The web site has a section for news about the Ameritrade Index and
other indices along with commentary.
At the news conference, Ameritrade also released results of an opinion
survey by Roper Starch Worldwide showing that:
- Online investors buy or sell stocks slightly more than once a
month on average, and 80 percent of online investors have a
defined investor strategy, which is long-term capital
appreciation;
- Online investors spend on average one day or more making their
investment decisions and use a variety of research tools such as
analyst reports, earnings reports and news;
- Nearly eight of every 10 investors say they are somewhat to very
satisfied with the success of their online investment
performance.
Ameritrade also has conducted a significant amount of research and
analysis with respect to its customers.
1. The Ameritrade customer base is overwhelmingly skewed toward the
affluent. Customers are predominantly higher-income, with
post-graduate education, and are in the
professional/managerial/self-employed professions. They own homes
of $200,000 or more, have incomes of $100,000 or more, own luxury
cars (over $25,000 in value) and have a net worth of $500,000 or
more (including the value of their homes).
2. The customers demonstrate the following psychographic and
attitudinal characteristics:
- They are independent, adventurous, competitive, confident and
curious, as evidenced by their strong interests in foreign
travel, science and technology, personal computers, real estate
investments, and more individual sports like golf and tennis.
- They are highly interested in furthering their personal growth
and sense of accomplishment.
3. The study includes a ranking of factors most important to
customers in selecting an online broker. The first five in order
of importance are:
- Trustworthiness
- Accessibility
- Customer Service
- Easy to Use Web Site, and
- Low Commissions
Ameritrade Holding Corporation (www.amtd.com) is a pioneer in the
discount and online brokerage industry. The Company provides brokerage
services and clearing services to self-directed individual consumer
investors and to financial institutions through its subsidiaries.
Subsidiaries of Ameritrade Holding include: Ameritrade, Inc.
(www.ameritrade.com), a leading online deep discount brokerage firm;
Accutrade, Inc. (www.accutrade.com), a discount brokerage delivering
superior levels of personal service and support to its clients;
AmeriVest, Inc. (www.amerivestinc.com), a provider of third-party
discount brokerage services and other financial services to commercial
banks, credit unions and thrift institutions; as well as Advanced
Clearing, Inc. (www.advancedclearing.com), a securities clearing firm
providing clearing services to each subsidiary as well as other
financial institutions. |
