GETTING PERSONAL CANADA: Investors Hunt Clues in Online Corporate Reports
7 August 2012
Dow Jones News Service
(c) 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

   By Evelyn Juan
Digging through pages of corporate financial reports can be confusing and intimidating.
But for investors looking to buy stock, there are some new ways to navigate through companies' financial reports to gain insight on trends and risks--crucial information that can make or break investment decisions.
Jerry Trites, lead judge for electronic disclosure with The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants' Corporate Reporting Awards program, said some companies have been moving away from the standard presentation of information, which is non-interactive. Instead, these companies are giving active investors a wide variety of online tools to help them construct their own analysis of the companies' metrics.
Empowering potential investors is part of an effort by some companies to be best-practice leaders. Better informed investors--knowing where a company stands, where it's going andits plan to get there--will make smarter investment choices.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (POT, POT.T), for instance, has a so-called DataTool program in the investors section of its website that allows users to slice and dice several types of data for their own research. Investors can cull historical data on income, cash flow, andeven compensation details of executives. The DataTool also allows users to pull out market figures and track historical data on fertilizer consumption, supply and demand, or world population trends.
Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM, AEM.T) has a similar tool called the Interactive Analyst Center that helps investors collect financial and operating data in aggregate form or in charts and ratio diagrams.
"Investors can analyze and create their own indicators out of all that," said Mr. Trites. "A lot of active investors are doing that."
Typically, a company's investor relations portal on its website serves as a database for information about quarterly financials, annual reports, regulatory filings, news and other information that would be of interest to shareholders or potential investors. However, the data are rarely interactive and investors are left on their own to connect the dots when looking for data that could help them see historic or market trends.
For the novice investor looking for clues through the financial reports, Mr. Trites said a good start would be to examine quarterly profitability trends, revenues, and current assets and liabilities.
But beyond looking at financial statistics, Mr. Trites urged investors not to overlook notes that pertain to recent events affecting the company. In assessing risks, for instance, investors should closely look at the management discussion and analysis portion of financial reports, then tie down risk discussions into the chief executive and president's report that both give highlights of the company.
Telus Corp. (TU), which won CICA's overall award for excellence in corporate reporting last year, has a separate section on its website showing how its mergers and acquisition activities affect investors' stock holdings.
Some companies, like Bank of Montreal BMO), also provide the transcript of conference calls with investorsandanalysts, where risks and other issues are more thoroughly discussed by management with analysts.
"Risk has been very difficult to predict," said Mr. Trites. "In the last few years, particularly since 2008, investors want to try to find companies that present best risk profile and still give them some kind of risk return."
(Evelyn Juan writes about financial advisers and their jobs, with a particular focus on news, trends, business strategies, organizational changes, and regulatory issues relevant to the retail brokerage sector in Canada. She also writes about wealth management practice and personal finance issues. Evelyncan be reached at 416-306-2025; evelyn.juan@dowjones.com andis on Twitter @evelynjuan.)
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