There are two basic ways that conference calls work. First, the calling party calls all of the participants successively and adds them to the call. Second, the participants "call in" to the conference call by dialing a special telephone number set up for that purpose, or by dialing into a "conference bridge," which is a special type of telephone that answers multiple calls.
Not all conference calls allow every user to speak -- which makes sense, since a conference call of 1000 people who were all allowed input would not be a huge success. In fact, an important use of conference calls is investor conference calls.
In investor conference calls, executives from a publicly traded company report on their company's recent news and comment on future expectations and prospects. Most larger companies host conference calls quarterly, shortly after the conclusion of each fiscal quarter. This call is called an investor conference call or an analyst call. Shareholders or just investors who are interested in that company can tune in to this conference call and gain an extremely valuable source of information about that stock.
In investor conference calls, there is a presentation by a representative of the company, after which several stock analysts will ask questions which the representative will answer.
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