Success Factors of Web Portals for Financial Forecasting

Abstract

Stock news is distributed through several web portals. As a stock investor, one should always stay up to date: news, whether positive or negative, can have significant impact on the price of securities or shares. Especially on web portals for financial forecasting, one can often find not only essential news about companies, but also expert tips, recommendations, and articles about the situation in certain industries and regions. With the multitude of different web portals that can be accessed on the internet today, it is important, especially from the point of view of a web portal operator, to know which factors significantly generate a benefit for the customer. Therefore, this research project aims to identify major drivers for the success of web portals for financial forecasting from a costumer point of view. The project was carried out in cooperation with the start-up Aktienaufstieg.de. The developed model in this work is examined with a quantitative approach, using structural equation modeling to evaluate the answers of 100 participants. The results of this study calculated with Smart PLS show that especially the offer of web portals as well as the services have a positive and significant influence on the success of web portals for financial forecasting. The results of the structural model are therefore not only useful from the perspective of investors, but also for web portals in financial forecasting in general.