Although an increasing number of Internet users have turned to the Web to make sense of wild stock market swings in recent months, many consumer investors have grown dissatisfied with financial services sites, according to a report released Tuesday by Gartner Group-owned research firm cPulse.
By the third quarter of 2000, 40 percent of those polled said they were extremely satisfied with investment sites. However, at the end of the same quarter, slightly less than 32 percent said they were satisfied.
"It appears that swings in the market over the last three quarters have caused consumers to be even hungrier for up-to-date, fact-rich research that could help guide their financial decision making," said cPulse analyst Eric Rudich.
Rudich added, "As the market worsened, consumers have become increasingly critical of the sites they relied on for financial support."
Site Loyalty Down
The cPulse study also found that customer loyalty 
to financial content-based sites
has seen a steady downturn.
In the middle of last summer, the report rated roughly 16 percent of respondents as loyal to a particular site. By the end of September that number had dropped to 10 percent.
Content is Capital
cPulse found that "irrelevant information" was the leading reason for the defections and the primary cause of customer dissatisfaction with investing sites.
The report also said that pertinent and useful content was a key factor in generating loyalty among users to a particular site.
However, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq nose-dived, causing massive revaluation among formerly high-flying stocks, investors were hard-pressed to find rich research and timely advice, said cPulse.
"Apparently consumers were demanding more and more of their financial sites and they became more than just a place to check stock quotes or make purchases," said cPulse executive vice president Jody Dodson.
What Investors Want
The study recommends that investing content sites offer as much historical content online as is available offline, in order to bolster their consumer ratings.
In addition, the study recommends that investment sites offer
more
analyst-level perspective, including comprehensive
performance analysis and news coverage. cPulse
also said that consumers are interested in
online tutorials that explain how to use the
financial information being provided.
Brokerages Feel Pinch
Many high-profile Internet brokerages have been caught up in the meteoric rise and fall of the market, and the subsequent trading pull-back by wary investors.
On Monday, Ameritrade cited a downturn in the growth of online trading when it slashed 230 full-time employees, or roughly 9 percent of the firm's workforce, as well as 100 temporary positions. The company also said that it expects to incur a larger-than-expected loss for the first quarter.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Morgan Online, the banking site of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., said it was laying off roughly 150 employees in sales, marketing and client acquisition.
In addition, last month, Charles Schwab said it
had instituted a hiring freeze and
would temporarily freeze the salaries of
hundreds of its top executives
until market conditions take an upturn.
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