Just about everyone with retirement savings or a pension is a shareholder, usually via index funds. I’m not sure if you can access your voting rights for those shares, or if they’re handled by the index fund manager (who for sure is voting for profit at all costs)

[–] Tommelot@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Technically speaking you're not the shareholder, but the fund is. You cannot get voting rights from owning ETFs.

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Well, you're a shareholder in that fund. The fund is a shareholder in the end companies.

In practice, this means Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab/etc have people whose job it is to research and vote in shareholder meetings for the companies where the fund has significant ownership. That's a big part of what the fund's expense ratio is paying for.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 0 points 2 days ago

Many of them do, in fact, extend the ability to vote for your weighted portion to you.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago

Typically, no. You don't get to vote for an index or mutual fund.

I've found stocks to be a fun thing to kind of collect. That company seems fun and stocks are $34. Eh, I'll buy one. And then just forget I have it. I don't do day trading or anything like that. So it's low stress and unless you are trying to buy a lot, relatively cheap. Occasionally you'll even get 24 cents back!

[–] a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Lol, Imma call the CEO of index funds.