Author Archives: John Palizza

Building a Good Investor Presentation

The company presentation to analysts is a staple of investor relations, yet it doesn’t get the type of analysis it deserves. I’m not talking here about whether or not your slides are any good or how well your chairman speaks in public. Rather, I

Golf and Investor Relations

Mark Twain famously called golf “A good walk spoiled”. I was reminded of this because last weekend I returned to playing golf after a ten-year hiatus. In between swings of the golf club (of which there were many), I got to thinking about what in…

Small Cap Companies and Efficient Markets

One of my favorite quotes about the capital markets comes from Fischer Black, the financial mastermind who helped invent the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. Black, who had been a Professor at MIT, situated on the Charles River in Cambridge, left…

The Infield Fly Rule and Disclosure

With the advent of Memorial Day and warm weather (down here in Houston we define warm weather by temperatures being above 90 degrees, where they will stay until late September), my thoughts have turned to baseball and what we in the investor relation…

Expert Networks Following the Rajaratnam Verdict

There was a front page article in today’s New York times as part of the coverage of the guilty verdicts against Raj Rajaratnam, that was titled, “Next Up: A Crackdown on Expert Networks”. The gist of the article is that federal prosecutors were…

Expert Networks Following the Rajaratnam Verdict

There was a front page article in today’s New York times as part of the coverage of the guilty verdicts against Raj Rajaratnam, that was titled, “Next Up: A Crackdown on Expert Networks”. The gist of the article is that federal prosecutors were…

Sell Side Coverage, Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the relationship between Sell Side Coverage and a company’s ability to generate commissions. The long and the short of the article was that the sell side is paid via commissions and therefore, the more trading v…

Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold, But Just Right

I had the privilege of speaking last week before the Austin- San Antonio chapter of NIRI. The topic was one of my favorites, Insights from Academia, or What I’ve Learned About Investor Relations by Teaching in a Business School. Every time I give the…

The Relationship Between Sell Side Coverage and Commissions

Go to almost any gathering of investor relations officers and you are likely to hear them bemoaning the decline in the number of sell side analysts that follow their companies and publish earnings estimates. And if you are talking to small and even m…

Take the Time to Say Thank You

I’m going to take a break this week from investor relations and instead talk about personal relations. After all, it’s my blog and I can write about what I want to. The other day I had one of those “What ever happened to?” moments. In this c…