We spoke last week about investors’ right to information – what information is essential in making an investment decision, and we also spoke about where such information is available and how to use it.

This week, we will explore the second tenet, which is the “Right to voice opinions”. We will explain how you can use this right (coupled with the right to information) to protect your investment.

Consider the following scenario:

Every morning, Adam opens the business section of his local daily to find out how the local stock market is performing , how companies are managing given the prevailing economic environment, whether they can still pay dividends, corporate restructuring of some companies etc. While reading the newspaper, he suddenly remembers the company he invested his hard earned money for the past five years. Adam bought the shares of the company, XYZ based on his friend’s “tip” that the share price of this company is going to skyrocket, as there was a rumour that some take-over was going to take place, etc. However, after he bought a few lots of XYZ shares, nothing happened to the share price. In fact, after a while, the price declined and the value of Adam’s shares deteriorated. Apparently, there had not been much coverage about the company in the local dailies for quite awhile. Even though he had been receiving notices to attend the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) , he had ignored them. No point crying over spilled milk, he thought. What is done is done and it was only one bad investment decision. “Anyway, if I had gone to the AGMs, what could I have done? I do not know what questions to ask. Those Directors and corporate managers are ‘prominent people’ and they look so ‘clever’. I would be very reluctant to ask questions because I am certain that my questions would sound stupid or petty to them,” he thought.