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10-5-2008 |
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Here at WallStraits, when it comes to matters of money, we believe in transparency and accountability. Day in and day out, we dedicate ourselves to delivering responsible information about listed companies and sound financial education. That's why, when it comes to talking about stocks, we think it's important that you know exactly where we're coming from. With this in mind, we have developed a strong and detailed company-wide disclosure policy to guide our business and communications. We call it Sagely Disclosure. We invite you to take some time to read through it, and hope it helps enrich your experience here at WallStraits.
Investors Communicating with InvestorsWallStraits is a company that represents investors teaching and learning from other investors. Many financial publications do not permit their writers and editors to own stocks. WallStraits not only permits, but also encourages its staff to invest in common stock, and our company invests most if its own free cash flow into stocks also (WallStraits '8' Portfolio).
Why? Two reasons. First, we strongly believe the most effective way to create wealth is through the long-term ownership of stocks. The US stock market has compounded 11% average annual returns over the last century. We believe the emerging Asian markets can offer similar, if not better returns as they mature. We believe in using the stock market as a savings bank, and we strongly encourage treating money management as a lifelong endeavor. Therefore, we think it'd be downright mean of us to close that avenue of investment to our employees.
Second, and more important, we don't consider our employees to be journalists, but rather communicators and teachers of financial matters. It's a subtle but critical difference that affects our entire service -- from our online site at Wallstraits.com, to our investment books (still in the creation phase), to our nationally syndicated newspaper and magazine columns.
As a company, we utilize every available medium to teach people of all ages, all income levels, all backgrounds, and all genetic codes about money and its applications in modern life. Therefore, we believe our staff's involvement in managing their own money is critical to their learning more about the subject and their succeeding in their own lives. And who better to write about investing than those who do it themselves?
Internally, WallStraits has always strived to operate with the highest levels of integrity and transparency. We believe we are the only financial educators (or money managers) to make our own corporate portfolio public record, with every trade posted on our Premium Site. As our business has grown and evolved, we have seen increasing interest in the particular issue of public disclosure -- especially from you, our loyal contributors and customers. To meet -- and, indeed, to exceed -- your expectations, we have decided to raise the bar in this area. Here are the key components of WallStraits's disclosure policy:
Disclosure
- When a WallStraits writer writes about a stock that he or she owns or beneficially owns, that fact is disclosed at the end of the article.
- All WallStraits employees are required to publicly disclose their current individual stock holdings on their personal portfolios in the WallStraits.com Premium Site (such as Sage Aspirant Don See's 'Young Pro' Portfolio).
Trading Restrictions
In addition to the above disclosure requirements, all WallStraits employees have always worked under additional trading restrictions and guidelines. These restrictions continue to require that all WallStraits employees:
- Must hold any stock they own for at least 30 days.
(No day trading allowed, no contra trading-- as if we'd want to!) - Cannot write about a stock in the period five days before and five days after purchasing or selling the stock.
- Cannot trade based on any knowledge they may have about articles that have yet to be published.
- Must notify our compliance officer (Chief Sage, Curtis) every time they buy or sell a stock, regardless of whether they have written about it.
Investors in WallStraits.com Pte Ltd
WallStraits is proud of the people and companies who have backed us. Major investors include:
- Curtis J. Montgomery: Founder
- Zhang ChengShuang (Kathy): Founder
- Internet Media House Asia: Frank Lavin was our board member prior to being named US Ambassador to Singapore, when he was forced to tender his resignation.
- Dr. Ng Cher Yew: Singaporean Businessman, and our Angel.
WallStraits also has formed a joint venture company called Financial PR Pte Ltd, with 75% owned by WallStraits.com and 25% owned by Softbank International E2-Capital. Financial PR specializes in helping companies make their IPO successful. WallStraits and our staff refrain from investing in placement IPO shares, and never accept any employee or business partner shares. The WallStraits corporate account does not invest in IPOs at all, and if our employees wish to invest in an IPO, they subscribe for shares at the corner ATM, just like anyone else.
Where's the Revenue come from?
Nearly all the technology you see on the WallStraits.com website is generated internally. We have no content providers, no technology partners, and only an occasional (but much appreciated!) advertisor. Our website (other than our Premium Site, S$100/yr, where we manage our own portfolios) is free to all visitors. Our Company Gallery is a resource center to learn about small-cap and mid-cap businesses, which are often under-researched. These Gallery Companies pay WallStraits a quarterly fee to have such information displayed on our website and syndicated to several media partners. We also design corporate websites for many businesses and manage individual stock portfolios for select brave investors who trust our judgement.
We do share our content with many distribution partners, including: Yahoo! Singapore, eGuide, Channel News Asia.com, The Edge, CNBC Asia, Today, Smart Investor, SIAS, and many other portals, newspapers, websites, magazines and friends. None of these partners are investors in WallStraits.com.
In Conclusion
We have designed our disclosure and trading guidelines to serve our community, our customers, and our employees with equal fairness. As always, though, you should remember to consider every piece of investment information you receive, here at the WallStraits or elsewhere, not as a de facto recommendation, but as an idea for further consideration. Even the strongest disclosure policy in the world does not excuse an individual from taking responsibility for his or her own decisions. Due diligence, critical thought, and use of the most extraordinary device in the world (the human brain) are crucial to your financial success.
If you'd like to offer us any feedback on this stuff, drop us an e-mail at staff@wallstraits.com.