SEC local roads shows part of a corporate plan

By Dinali Goonewardene

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials explained that a spate of investor forums being held islandwide were a part of their corporate plan, which consisted of 10 road shows to be carried out this year using a 24-week live TV programme billed on State TV to publicise the road shows.

The TV series and road shows are not aimed at marketing the stock market but at educating investors as stocks are not a usual form of investments like bank savings, SEC officials said.

                 If investors feel it is a good time to invest, they will, an SEC official said. “Our objective is to develop the market and the TV series is aimed at educating not marketing,” SEC officials added.

With the commencement of the TV series in June, the SEC held its first road show in Galle in July attracting 1,000 potential investors. The road shows attract a large number of potential investors and a few investors.

The SEC works alongside stock brokers and unit trusts at the forums, promoting unit trusts to investors who lack knowledge or time to make investments in the stock market. The forum in Galle saw 15 unit trusts and 15 stock broking houses participate, allowing prospective investors to approach these market players in the event they wanted to invest in a particular stock.

The second road show was held in Kandy in July and attracted 2,000, mostly potential investors, the SEC said.

Three other road shows were held in Kurunegala in August, in Negombo in September and Ampara in October with the collaboration of the Colombo Stock Exchange branches in Kandy, Kurunegala and Negombo.

The forum in Ampara attracted 250 prospective investors although the Colombo Stock Exchange does not have a branch in Ampara.

The message at these forums has been that if you want to invest, you should first have some knowledge about the market. The Colombo stock market has risen 126% in 2009, 96% in 2010 and 3% in 2011 and a comparison with alternative investments in the last 30 years shows that it has yielded the highest return.

“It is a long-term perspective and not a casino mentality that we strive to promote through road shows and TV programmes while distributing educational leaflets and booklets free of charge to prospective investors at forums,” SEC officials said.

The SEC will hold a series of TV programmes in Tamil in the near future.