New Rating Service for Investors Takes Unique Look at Public Companies; Investor Awareness Index Ratings Provide New Tool to Support Investment Decisions

The Investor Awareness Index announced today the immediate online availability of its new rating service at www.InvestorAwarenessIndex.com . The ratings help investors analyze a public company’s commitment to communicate its story, generate investor interest, grow its shareholder base, and foster liquidity. Investors are keenly interested in knowing how much a company is doing to reach out to the investment community because of the potential benefits (e.g. more shareholders, liquidity, valuation, etc). As such, the Investor Awareness Index’s ratings can be a strategic, analytic tool that can be incorporated into the investment research process.

Each company is rated on a scale of 0-to-10. Scores result from a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of various investor awareness activities in which a company is engaged. Some of the activities and initiatives that comprise each company's score and/or that can help create awareness in the investment community include investor relations representation, Web 2.0 initiatives that enhance content distribution, and media coverage, among many others. A list of activities can be found on the site on the Scoring page.

The Investor Awareness Index disregards, and does not include in its ratings, activities solely designed to create short-lived spikes in volume and stock price. A higher score indicates to investors that a company is engaged in many or most of the activities that comprise The Index's scoring. A lower score conveys that a company is involved in only a few of the activities.

The Index helps fulfill the demand by investors who have become increasingly sophisticated consumers of company information and data and who are looking for new ways to support investment decisions. “Our ratings underscore the importance of reaching out to the investment community in today’s market,” stated Paul Marino, President and Co-Founder of Investor Awareness Index, Inc. “Investors, investment groups, analyst and research firms, and investment advisors can use our ratings as an additional analytic tool that can be incorporated into the models or theories used when assessing an investment opportunity.”

Users can search company scores for free by entering a trading symbol or name at www.InvestorAwarenessIndex.com. Public companies may request a free score by registering and filling out a questionnaire.