• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

CEOs Choose Energy Stocks, Survey Says: Real Estate is Second for Green Bay-Area Executives

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 June 2006, 03:00 CDT

By Paul Gores, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jun. 7--Ever wonder where bosses invest their money?

If a recent survey by a Green Bay bank is an accurate gauge, CEOs like energy stocks.

A quarterly survey by Intellectual Marketing LLC on behalf of Nicolet National Bank asked about 170 chief executives at companies of all types and sizes in the Green Bay area and the Fox Valley how they would invest $100,000 of their personal funds.

The average executive would invest nearly $52,000 of it in stocks, with shares of an oil giant and a Green Bay power company topping the list of likely investments, the survey shows.

Real estate investment was a distant second at $23,445. Bonds were next, followed by money markets and Treasury bills.

The overall interest in stocks was higher in the first quarter of 2006 than in the same period in 2005, when the chief executives said they would have put $38,667 into stocks and $38,180 into real estate investments. Oil profits and a cooling of the real estate market may have helped nudge more of the theoretical money into stocks, the survey reports.

David G. Wegge, president of Green Bay-based Intellectual Marketing, said stocks typically are the first choice by various margins in the survey. Lately, he said, stocks of national companies have been favored in the survey more than local or regional ones.

"We thought it would be one way that we could kind of track what the views were on investment strategies for CEOs and business owners," Wegge, who also is a St. Norbert College political science professor, said of the personal investing question on the quarterly survey.

The top two stock picks of CEOs were Exxon Mobil Corp. and Green Bay's WPS Resources Corp. Among others most often mentioned were Procter & Gamble Co., General Electric Co., Chevron Corp., Google Inc., Harley-Davidson Inc. and Walgreen Co.

George Reis, who runs the Two Rivers money management firm George V. Reis Investment Group Inc., wasn't surprised that the CEOs preferred stocks.

"Stick with quality companies. That's the way you're successful," Reis said. "Historically, that is the way to invest."

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:XOM, NYSE:WPS, NYSE:PG, NYSE:GE, NYSE:CVX, NASDAQ-NMS:GOOG, NYSE:HDI, NYSE:WAG,

Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More News in this Category