"The survey will provide information which will, ultimately, enable listed companies and their advisors to improve their service in the investor communications area," says Nic Oldert, managing director of Profile Media, which is co-ordinating the survey.

The survey will collect information on how investors decide to buy or sell, which sources of information are most important, what factors investors regard as the key drivers of share price performance, how often investors trade, how many trading accounts they have, and how they place orders.

Oldert says that many investor relations practitioners guess at the answers to these questions or use anecdotal evidence. The survey will make available concrete information about investor behaviour.

Investor ratings of traditional glossy annual reports will be of particular interest to listed companies. One of the survey questions asks respondents to rank sources of information, including annual reports.

The cost of a company's annual report can often run to six or even seven figures, so its effectiveness is an important issue.

Prizes are offered as an incentive to return the survey forms before the end of December. These include five MarketStream Information Pagers and two pairs of tickets to London on Lufthansa German Airlines.

Survey respondents must be investors on the JSE to be eligible for prizes.