A study on the usefulness of annual report in investment decisions: the individual investors' perspective

• Main Authors: Goh, Mei Yen, Kan, Kian Seng, Wong, Kok Weng
• Other Authors: Nanyang Business School
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Accounting
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/55494
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study is essentially a replication and an extension of the study –“Private Shareholder Response To Corporate Annual Reports” conducted by John K. Courtis in 1982. Due to time and cost constraint, the sample obtained in this present study may not be representative of all individual investors in Singapore. However, it should be noted that of the 78 usable replies received, it is found that newspapers are a more important source of information for equity decision-making than annual reports. Within the annual report itself, profit and loss statement, balance sheet and statistical data are the more frequently read and more important items while auditor’s report is viewed as the least read and least important. The qualitative characteristics that annual reports lack of as compared to other sources of information are ‘understandability’ and timeliness’. Recommendations such as reducing jargons and focusing on illustrations are suggested to improved the former, while the latter is being recognised to be an inherent limitation of annual reports which therefore cannot be improved.