The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASD:HAIN), which manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells organic and natural products, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/20/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked on 11/18/2014. Sorry for the late post. Today is the last day to vote online. I […]
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASD:CSCO), which designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP) based networking products and services related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/20/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked on 11/18/2014. Sorry for the late post. […]
This is the last in a three part series. See also Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 1): Editorial Calls For Advanced Disclosure and Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 2): Historical Background. Take Action: Ask your mutual fund, pension fund, and/or endowment to: Send you a copy of their proxy voting policies and their proxy […]
The SEC misses 85% of fraud. GMI’s model is designed to identify fraud in advance. I’d love to see funds using this system to modify their indexes. If many do so, it could be one of the biggest tools in improving corporate governance. (more…)
Apple Inc. (NASD:AAPL) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 2/28/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org was down for maintenance when I checked and voted on 2/19/2014, so no voting advice there. I checked a few other sources such as CalPERS, Florida SBA and OTPP but none had disclosed their votes on their sites as of yesterday. I voted […]
$DELL is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 10/17/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 10/9/2013. I voted with management 71% of the time. View Proxy Statement. I took a little less time in analyzing the proxy since the company is being sold to […]
Procter and Gamble $PG is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 10/8/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 10/1/2013. I voted with management 60% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in […]
Congratulations to GMI Ratings for winning top place for corporate governance research firms and Kimberly Gladman, Ric Marshall, and Sarah Wilson for top individual awards. Top ranking for SRI research goes to Sustainalytics. (more…)
No, this article isn’t about becoming famous though the internet, the Sisters of the Sororitas, or Famulous Eateries in Bangkok. Rather, I just spent an hour on a Webinar with GMI Ratings on their Forensic Alpha Model (FAM), designed to help investors predict stock returns using forensic-accounting and governance-related measures of issuer risk. Yes, it was […]
Time to Move Down the Food Chain With Proxy Proposals How does director voting look so far this year? Eighty percent of directors up for election received over 90% shareholder support. And nine of ten received at least 80% support. Directors of large-cap companies had the highest rate of support, averaging 95% approval. Small cap and […]
Investment News reports that California CalPERS, the second biggest U.S. public pension fund, is weighing the idea of taking its massive $255 billion assets under management and moving to an all-passive portfolio. Should we care? Well, it would matter a lot for active managers who receive management fees from CalPERS, Josh Brown, who runs the popular financial […]
Holly Gregory’s post Applying Securities Laws to Social Media Communications is the best I’ve seen on when the SEC’s Enforcement Division is likely to recommend an enforcement case to the Commission based on the potential for liability arising from disclosures by corporate officers through social media. As widely reported, including by WSJ, Netflix and CEO Reed Hastings both received Wells Notices from […]
FT reports that a survey by Aviva Investors found that ninety per cent of equity and fixed-income fund managers polled, with about £4tn of combined assets under management, recognized the importance of ESG to end owners and consultants although a smaller percentage, 79 per cent, said they were likely to (more…)
Cisco ($CSCO) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/15/2012. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of five funds when I voted on 11/8/2012. I voted with management 83% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank will be […]
GMI and Trucost announced a strategic partnership to incorporate Trucost environmental performance data into the GMI Analyst research platform. The agreement strengthens GMI’s existing governance analysis and will enable GMI clients – leading institutional investors, banks, insurers, auditors, regulators and corporations – to incorporate a measure of environmental risk alongside traditional financial metrics. (more…)
Cyberonics, Inc.’s stock has gained since the neurological device maker announced earnings growth in the three months ended July 27. But, according to GMIRatings, results may reflect a view through rose colored glasses. (more…)
GMI Ratings has long maintained that the increasing frequency of Black Swan events in capital markets will continue to challenge traditional approaches to risk modeling and portfolio management. For at least the past two decades, doubts have been mounting about the ability of classical economic theories and portfolio management philosophies to reliably describe, explain or […]