Visualizations : Proxy Voting and Fees at S&P 500 Index Funds
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Comments (5)
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pick
says:
Note how Vanguard and Fidelity, the two lowest-cost funds, have opposite voting profiles in these two dimensions: Vanguard withholds support from many director nominations and rarely supports shareholder proposals on exec comp, while Fidelity rarely opposes a director but often supports these shareholder resolutions.
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pick
says:
Shareholder proposals on employment and working conditions typically ask the company to address discrimination issues, report on outsourcing, or adopt labor standards.
Social and environmental resolutions often ask the company to report to shareholders about the firm's environmental impact or its environmental remediation strategies. Recently, these proposals have focused on climate change issues. This visualization shows that three S&P 500 funds supported these resolutions significantly more than the others: Schwab, Evergreen, and Legg Mason. DWS and Fidelity almost never supported them. |
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pick
says:
I'm quite surprised by how much of an activist Fidelity (highlighted in htis view) appears to be on corporate governance issues. Fidelity has a bad rap among shareholder activists because they so rarely support social, environmental, and labor proposals, but here we see that their S&P 500 index fund at least supports the highest proportion of proposals on takeover defenses (poison pill, etc) of these 13 funds, and among the highest proportion of proposals on executive compensation.
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pick
says:
Okay, I looked into this Fidelity thing further, and since I raised the issue here thought I should report a little. Fidelity's S&P 500 index fund (the Spartan fund, FSMAX) has a quite different voting profile from other Fidelity funds. You can see their record compared to other Fidelity funds on executive compensation proposals here: http://beta.proxydemocracy.org/proxy/proposals/type/ec/voters?page=2
and on takeover defenses here: http://beta.proxydemocracy.org/proxy/proposals/type/td/voters?page=2 |
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pick
says:
I think this visualization makes clear four choices open to someone who wants to get a low-fee S&P500 index fund and has opinions on labor/executive compensation proposals. Those sympathetic with labor activists should go for Schwab, at the top right, which supports a sizable proportion of exec comp and labor standards proposals. If you don't go for the labor standards proposals but you do support shareholder proposals on exec comp, you should get the Fidelity Spartan fund, highlighted on the top left. Otherwise, you could choose Vanguard or Riverside (lower left); Vanguard is a little more progressive than it looks here because many of their votes are abstentions rather than rejections.
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