世論 What Japan Thinks

Recently japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into shareholder meetings.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 20th of April 2007, goo Research got 1,083 successfully completed replies to their private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% were male, 24.8% in their twenties, 22.5% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 20.7% in their fifties, and 10.2% in their sixties.

Share trading is something I have yet to do in Japan, despite having a company savings scheme, so I cannot really comment much on the results of this survey. Of course one cannot mention shareholder meetings in Japan without mentioning the 総会屋, soukaiya, yakusa-connected extortionists who seek payment in return for not disrupting the company’s AGM. Many companies hold their AGM on the same day to hopefully reduce the chance of being targeted by the mob.

I was surprised by almost one in five shareholders having attended an AGM or the like. Perhaps the more detailed survey results indicates why many people choose to attend. Do companies give away gifts or have food laid on for attendees?
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of an opinion poll conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the subject of online stocks and shares trading. They interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprises; 82.4% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 49.1% in their thirties, 32.7% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

I know there’s a few people in my office who do online trading, but I don’t know what sort of portfolio they have outside of the company’s own employee share system, or how active they are. I used to have a few shares from privatisations back home, and come to think of it, I might even have some hiding somewhere that I’ve lost touch with. Didn’t Standard Life go private recently and give away many free shares to the policy holders?
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goo Research recently carried out some research on the fallout from the “Livedoor Shock”, as it is being called in Japan, and Horie’s arrest. The research was carried out in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Just as background, when the story broke on the 16th of January, The Tokyo Stock Market Mothers Index in particular, within which many new IT firms are listed, fell around 22.4% over the following two days.

For this survey, 1,092 people (I believe they all owned shares) were questioned to see how they had felt the effects of the Livedoor Shock. Note that the survey was conducted on the 1st and 2nd of February, by which time the main TOPIX index had recovered all its losses, but as can be seen later, the personal investors were still hurting, suggesting that they were holding IT-heavy portfolios or other high-risk investments.
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infoPLANT surveyed 6,128 users of DoCoMo iMode phones in mid-January by means of a questionnaire available through a publically-accessible iMode menu option regarding people’s views on matters relating to stocks and shares. The sample replying to this survey was 62.1% female, with 3.1% teenaged, 38.9% in their twenties, 41.9% in their thirties, 14.0% in their forties, and just 2% aged 50 or over.

Note that some of the raw data that I have translated looked a bit dodgy, so I cannot vouch for the quality of this survey as there may very well be errors in the raw data in addition to any biases in the survey methodology. I note that those with no interest in shares tend to select the “Other” option to the second and third question, which suggests perhaps there needs to be new services dreamed up to engage those disinterested, but on the other hand it probably means that it was just the default option people had to select to complete the form, as there was no “Not interested” answer available!
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