Friday, March 27, 2009

The influence of information on financial market


Even 7-8 years ago, the Russian financial market characterized by indifference to media reports, with the exception of only a political event. Multi «deafness» market meant that the West is a major market factor - Communications companies - due not only to youth market itself as the principal informant and general agencies are not the tape, as everywhere in the world, and Inside. But the situation is changing.

Agencies are changing along with the market
Of course, the credibility of the communications media - a philosophical question. «Nothing in life for me is not reality, yet I do not see on TV», - said one. «I trust the media at 5%, and the 5% - Yesterday's courses Central Bank», - the other state. Anyway, the reality is that now the market is actively responding to all the important news. More than ever it has become evident in the current year - for example, «the Yukos affair», when the communication agencies on this matter in minutes caused dramatic, sometimes 10-15% of items price hikes of the company's shares.

«We are well aware of its responsibility to the market - said the first deputy general director of« Interfax »Vladimir Gerasimov. - Not enough simply to strive to always be first. The most important thing - the credibility of our information and we will never sacrifice accuracy for speed. Take a quick - but above all I did the right ».

The agency, incidentally, passed last year charter, which sets stringent standards for working with the incoming information and rules of conduct for journalists, to exclude the possibility of «Interfax» unscrupulous players in their own interests.

To this end, often distributed forged faxes or emails. For example, this summer via e-mail distributed on the news searches of «Guta Bank», which actually took place a year and a half ago. And some media «klyunuli» on this information. True, and in the West is a case where the largest agencies has been sent to professionally faked press release about the bankruptcy of the company Emulex. Author podeshevevshie bought shares after the publication of news, but when the company gave a formal denial, sold them. But, unlike in Russia, the history of the end of a court sentence. In any case, the agency, being the most expeditious, complete with dedicated source of financial information around the world have played a leading role in informing the participants of the stock market. Today, Russian agencies are among its customers virtually all active participants in the market. Of course, not only in world practice, but also in the activity of the agencies. Total number of news agencies and the list of topics covered - including the most highly - have grown over the past 10 years by an order of magnitude. News «Prime-TASS», «Interfax», «RBC» is now integrated into the trading system, RTS and MICEX, which is made available to traders directly. Many agencies, given the massive entry of private investors have created an audience for this special information channels operating through the Internet brokers.

This creates a strong information environment, which helps reduce the Inside - information that comes to market in public, but on «gray» channels. Does this mean that fewer Inside? Certainly. But, according to market participants, is concerned largely blue chips and second-tier companies, where the rules of corporate governance has less than perfect.

Companies have become more transparent, but ...
The inability of the issuer and clear sound information policy - this is the most fertile ground for the emergence Inside. If the company does not publish on time needed to market information and does not respect the confidentiality of these data, it inevitably comes to the market that the market commentary intelligently azyvayut rumors. It was encouraging that, in contrast to earlier times, now the company evaluated not only on financial outcomes but also to comply with the norms of corporate behavior. According to estimates of western experts, to companies that behave decently towards the shareholders and the transparency of them, the prize for the Russian market could reach tens of percent. According to the agency Standard & Poor's, the index of information transparency 60 largest Russian companies last year increased from 34% to 39%. One of the most important requirements (it is precisely aimed at combating the Inside) - the simultaneous disclosure of company information to all interested persons. This principle is not as simple as it seems, and sponger it to us with difficulty.

For example, a major Russian company several quarters in succession, first disclosed a group of analysts, and only then - all the rest. Of course, someone on this information worked, and someone lost. In doing so, we have cases of such violations - it is not uncommon. Even in the widely publicized corporate code of conduct is not clearly defined the requirements for disclosure of information. As they say analysts, if the prohibition on selective disclosure of information becomes a reality, it will cause a further blow to the Inside.

A very important event
In the case of disclosure to a consciousness of hope, of course, difficult. Therefore, in October last year FCSM Russia must issuing company report «the day» of all significant events through news agencies. This is a revolutionary event for the market, as well as to the communication of the significant facts were so late that included, rather, to the field of historical data, rather than to the information that actually might be interested in the market.

News, for which data on the performance of boards of directors, dividend payments, change of shareholders or bonds represent a great interest in a short time have created a publicly available resource, through which this information reaches the market. According to one of the managers, «joint project of the FCSM and the news - one of the best and right in recent years. As a result of information infrastructure in line with the wishes of the market and far ahead of all other elements of the stock of infrastructure. Disclosure issuers equalizes all market participants and is a setback to the Inside ».

Now, according to the «Interfax» and AK & M - authorized agencies - in the works for more than 4700 companies that publish about 200 messages a day. Disclosure system, which involved a large number of companies with different history of the stock market (or the complete lack thereof), of course, identified and a series of problems. For example, some major companies do not have complete clarity as to harmonize the requirements for them in the West and in Russia. As a result, often in English disclose more information than in Russian. Or she goes first. Naturally, this means the discrimination of domestic investors. Another question - how to coordinate the activities of Press and units responsible for the disclosure of information as to harmonize the disclosure and communication with the press? There is only one answer: the channels of disclosure must work simultaneously to all investors receive the information simultaneously.

The content of the reporting, disclosure by issuers, and sometimes also cause divisions within the company. For example, in Russia do not need to disclose information about the remuneration of each of the persons belonging to the government issuer - there are requirements to disclose only the total remuneration of all members of government. Nevertheless, there have been instances of publication of data on the amount of remuneration the sole executive body - the General Director.

In conclusion, we note that, despite the problems in Russia have a system of information disclosure, which is already a real tool to combat Inside. And now they can be improved. But defeat Inside, you can only jointly by the regulator and the media.



Sergey Khoroshev

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