Abstract
The purpose of this article is to examine general investors' perceptions of 11 information sources in Bangladesh. Most of the prior literature is based on advanced economies, while comparatively little is known about the perceptions of general investors in emerging countries. This article intends to fill this research gap. It offers rich data on general investors' perceptions of different information sources in the context of an emerging country, Bangladesh. This is one of the very few studies conducted in Bangladesh. It is based on data collected through a questionnaire survey of general investors' perceptions of 11 information sources: stockbroker advice; family/friends' advice; company announcements/reports; communication with company management; newspapers, magazines and journals; regular publications of the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission; technical analysis; fundamental analysis; corporate internet reporting; stock market rumour; and other sources (if any). A total of 316 responses were collected and data analysis was carried out using the Mann-Whitney (M-W) z-statistics and the Student-Newman-Keuls multiple range test. The study reveals that while 80 per cent of the respondents used corporate announcements/reports for their investment decision making, it was ranked the second after fundamental analysis based on overall mean values. Among the five corporate announcements and reports, the corporate annual report was the most important source of information for general investors in both their ranking and rating.