(January 20 – 09:45 ET) – A new survey of financial Web site users has found that Canadian investors are changing their financial habits as a result of access to online investment information – including lessening their reliance on financial advisors.
The survey was conducted online by SurveySite, an Internet market research company, at globeinvestor.com and globefund.com in November and December 1999. The survey sampled 5,442 respondents. Among other things it found that fifty percent rely less on financial advisors as a result of Web information.
According to the survey almost ninety percent are checking the status of their portfolios more frequently, almost eighty percent are doing more independent research on stocks and funds, and more than sixty percent are making investment decisions as a direct result of using these Web sites.
Forty-nine percent of respondents have actually purchased stocks online and thirty-one percent have purchased a mutual fund online. Sixty-four percent plan to use a discount broker and seventy-nine percent plan to increase their use of the Internet for investing over the next three years.