Quick hits on tweet power, investor satisfaction and anxiety.

WE TWEET… But maybe we should pay more attention to other tweeters. A trio of researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that “crowdsourced” earnings estimates had “slightly more accuracy than Wall Street’s consensus earnings” during 2013 and 2014 and a big reason is that they are more objective than professional analysts due to the “lowballing phenomenon pervasive in the industry.” The study found Wall Street’s average estimate was 65-68% lower than the actual reported earnings versus 52-54% lower according to the crowd. Tweet sentiment also contains information that is not in traditional pre-announcement variables, such as forecast errors, earnings surprises, bias, coverage, track record and earnings volatility.

WE LIKE… To know what fees and commissions we’re paying, but the investment industry apparently doesn’t want us to know. Almost half of investors say their investment firm hasn’t provided them with such information despite the implementation of Client Relationship Model – Phase 2 that requires such information, according to The J.D. Power 2015 Canadian Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study, even though transparency increases satisfaction. Investor satisfaction with firms that provide an explanation of their fees increases by 87 points on average (801 vs. 714) while even providing a summary of fees improves satisfaction by 62 points.

WE FEEL… Anxious about the market sometimes, as do 97% of Canadian investors. Our top fears, according to a BMO InvestorLine study of 1,004 investors, are financial loss (47%), getting a poor return (40%) and market volatility (33%). Women are more anxious than men, most notably about financial loss and volatility. The study also found that Canadians are generally confused about investing as only 10% say nothing puzzles them about investing. The top areas of confusion were finding an investment that will yield the best return with minimal risk (38%) and finding investment options that will best suit their risk tolerance and life stage (25%). —