As anxious Americans continue to fret about their financial portfolios, the number of US visits to the Stocks and Shares category of websites rose 19% in February 2009 compared with the same period last year,
according to data from Hitwise, which said the category accounted for 1.11% of all US internet visits during the month.
The February rankings represent the third-highest month for the category in the past year, behind October and September 2008. The average time spent within the category was 11 minutes and 24 seconds, an increase of 14% over February 2008, Hitwise reported.
Yahoo Finance Top Visited Site
In February 2009, Yahoo Finance was the top-visited website in the category, with 22.21%. MSN Money received the second-highest number of visits (7.32%), followed by CNN Money (7.16%).
Branded Sites Most Popular
Among the top 300 search terms sending traffic to the Stocks and Shares category, 64% were for branded terms in February 2009, Hitwise said. Stock searches made up 20%, and generic searches made up 16%. The majority of searches within the Stocks and Shares category are navigational, where internet visitors simply are searching on the brand name of their desired destination.
Sirius Radio Most Search Stock
Among the search terms in the Stocks and Shares category in February 2009, Sirius XM was the top-searched stock amid talk of potential bankruptcy filing. Bank of America, General Electric, Pure Spectrum and Cross Atlantic Commodities round out the top-five search terms for the month. The top generic financial search terms were “currency converter,” “gold price,” “gold prices,” “exchange rates” and “gold.”
“With recent declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, consumers are increasingly turning to websites to monitor financial news and portfolio performance,” said Heather Dougherty, director of research for Hitwise. “There is a strong need for continuous information, particularly during economic uncertainty, especially advice that could help customers weather the storm.”
About the data: The search term data is based on the volume of all US searches for the four weeks ending February 28, 2009, resulting in traffic to the Stocks and Shares category from the Hitwise sample of 10 million users.
