Ultimate Weapon

“US financial activists have recently introduced astute boycott strategies. Created by Max Keiser, the BVR attempts to identify listed companies that are financially the most sensitive to a boycott. We have refined this concept in our scoring model.” - “Consumer Power,” Cheuvreux June 2007

The boycott is ‘the ultimate weapon,’ according to the report. What is a boycott? A boycott is “a free, voluntary and ideological refusal on a systematic basis to consume a company’s products or services (or that of a country) for the purpose of obliging it to meet a demand.” As Max Keiser has repeatedly stated, “a boycott is the no cost weapon of choice for activists.”

And while 91% of consumers say they are prepared to boycott the products of a company for poor behaviour, in reality, the ‘ultimate weapon’ is wielded mostly by the educated and the middle to upper income brackets. According to the report, less than 15% of people with no university degree have ever boycotted a product. And only 25% of those with income of less than 1500 euros per month have boycotted a product, compared to 46% of those with monthly incomes greater than 3100 euros.

As is reflected in Karmabanque research, Cheuvreux found that consumer goods and retailers were most vulnerable to a boycott, hence the lowest CCC rating. The companies most resistant to a boycott were found to be the banks, AAA rating for them. Banks shouldn’t be too relaxed about this as Cheuvreux’s study also found that resistance to a boycott “is also a good indicator of the threat of possible regulation.”

Max Keiser created Karmabanque in 2002 as a place for activists to monetize their dissent. With Cheuvreux’s report providing another layer of important dissent data, the ultmate boycott weapon just got a market guided missile.

To learn more about Max Keiser

To read the Cheuvreux boycott report download pdf below:

"Consumer Power": Cheuvreux Bank report - 46K

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