A survey by the Association for Investment Management and Research says that regulation Fair Disclosure has succeeded in providing small investors and investment professionals with the same information, but it also has given many companies an excuse to provide less information to everyone, and analysts have had to do more legwork.

This is the second survey of analysts by AIMR about the impact of the new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulation, which took effect last October 23.

In the first AIMR survey, done in February, a majority of the analysts and portfolio managers responding said the quality and quantity of substantive information had declined as a result of the new regulation.

The current survey shows no statistically significant change in that view. The specific types of information that respondents still consider to be less available include: earnings guidance, forward-looking information, facts about internal operations, facts about costs and pricing, and facts about sales volume.

AIMR’s president and CEO, Thomas Bowman, commented, “Regulation FD promised fair disclosure, and it seems to have achieved that, but apparently at the expense of full disclosure. Everyone has access to the same information at the same time, and that’s laudable, but if there is less information in the marketplace, that’s lamentable. Our focus now needs to be to get corporations to be more forthcoming in their public disclosures, to provide the level of detailed information investors need to make better-informed investment decisions.”

The survey also shows that investment professionals are responding by relying less on companies for information and more on their own legwork.

About 31% said they are conducting a greater amount of fundamental analysis, compared to only 4% who report doing less. “This back-to-basics approach to professional analysis is very positive,” Bowman said. “But it shouldn’t be a case of one or the other. Top-notch fundamental analysis requires full disclosure.”

Survey respondents advised companies to communicate more detail more candidly, hold intra-quarter Web casts and conference calls, issue more specific and detailed earnings guidance, and have a clearer definition of a material versus non-material event and respond accordingly.