What should I do about proxy statements?
"You own a fractional share of the company, maybe you should care enough to at least read the proxy statements which explain the pro and con position for each of the issues you are voting on. That doesn't seem like too much to ask. On the other hand, if you are saying that the people who get paid to be knowledgeable about that stuff should just go make the decisions without troubling you with the details, then choose the option to go with their recommendations, which are always clearly indicated on the voting form. However, if you do this, it might make sense to at least do some investigation of who you are voting onto that board. I guess, as mpenrow said, you could just abstain, but I'm not sure how that is any different than just trashing the form. As for the idea that proxy votes are tainted somehow, the one missing piece of that conspiracy is what those people have to gain. Are you implying that your broker who has an interest in you making money off your investments and liking them would fraudulently cast proxy votes for you in a way that would harm the company and your return? Why exactly would they do this? I find your stance on the whole thing a bit confusing though. You seem to have some strong opinions on corporate Governance, but at the same time aren't willing to invest any effort in the one place you have any control over the situation. I'm just sayin.... Update Per the following information from the SEC Website, it looks like the meaning of a proxy vote can vary depending on the mechanics of the specific issue you are voting on. My emphasis added. What do ""for,"" ""against,"" ""abstain""and ""withhold"" mean on the proxy card or voter instruction form?   Depending on what you are voting on,   the proxy card or voting instruction   form gives you a choice of voting   ""for,"" ""against,"" or ""abstain,"" or   ""for"" or ""withhold."" Here is an   explanation of the differences: Election of directors: Generally,   company bylaws or other corporate   documents establish how directors are   elected. There are two main types of   ways to elect directors: plurality   vote and majority vote. A ""plurality vote"" means that the   winning candidate only needs to get   more votes than a competing candidate.   If a director runs unopposed, he or   she only needs one vote to be elected,   so an ""against"" vote is meaningless.   Because of this, shareholders have the   option to express dissatisfaction with   a candidate by indicating that they   wish to ""withhold"" authority to vote   their shares in favor of the   candidate. A substantial number of   ""withhold"" votes will not prevent a   candidate from getting elected, but it   can sometimes influence future   decisions by the board of directors   concerning director nominees. A ""majority vote"" means that directors   are elected only if they receive a   majority of the shares voting or   present at the meeting. In this case,   you have the choice of voting ""for""   each nominee, ""against"" each nominee,   or you can ""abstain"" from voting your   shares. An ""abstain"" vote may or may   not affect a director's election. Each   company must disclose how ""abstain"" or   ""withhold"" votes affect an election in   its proxy statement. This information   is often found toward the beginning of   the proxy statement under a heading   such as ""Votes Required to Adopt a   Proposal"" or ""How Your Votes Are   Counted."" Proposals other than an election of   directors: Matters other than voting   on the election of directors, like   voting on shareholder proposals, are   typically approved by a vote of a   majority of the shares voting or   present at the meeting. In this   situation, you are usually given the   choice to vote your shares ""for"" or   ""against"" a proposal, or to ""abstain""   from voting on it. Again, the effect   of an ""abstain"" vote may depend on the   specific voting rule that applies. The   company's proxy statement should again   disclose the effect of an abstain   vote." Whether or not you want to abstain or throw away the proxy, one reason it's important to at least read the circular is to find out if any of the proposals deal with increasing the company's common stock.  When this happens, it can dilute your shares and have an effect on your ownership percentage in the company and shareholder voting control. On most proxy statements (all I have ever received) you have the ability to abstain from voting.  Just go down the list and check Abstain then return the form.  You will effectively be forfeiting your right to vote. EDIT: According to this, after January 1, 2010 abstaining and trashing the voting materials are the same thing.  Prior to January 1, 2010 your broker could vote however they wanted on your behalf if you chose not to vote yourself.  The one caveat is this seems to only apply to the NYSE (unless I am reading it wrong).  So not sure about stocks listed on the NASDAQ.
"Historically that 'divide by 1000' rule of thumb is what many people in Australia have thought of as normal, and yes, it's about a 5.2% gross yield.  Net of expenses, perhaps 3-4%, without allowing for interest. If you're comparing this to shares, I think the right comparison is to the dividend yield, not to the overall PE.  A dividend yield of about 3-5% is also about typical: if you look at the Vanguard Index Australian Shares Fund as a proxy for the ASX the yield last year was about 4%. Obviously a 4% return is not very competitive with a term deposit.  But with both shares and housing you can hope for some capital growth in addition to the income yield.  If you get 4% rental yield plus 5% growth it is more attractive. Is it ""good"" to buy at what people have historically thought was ""normal""?  Perhaps you are better off looking around, or sitting out, until you find a much better price than normal. ""Is 5% actually historically normal?"" deserves a longer answer." It depends on the timing of the events. Sometimes the buying company announces their intention but the other company doesn't like the deal. It can go back and forth several times, before the deal is finalized. The specifics of the deal determine what happens to the stock: The deal will specify when the cutoff is. Some people want the cash, others want the shares.  Some will speculate once the initial offer is announced where the final offer (if there is one) will end up. This can cause a spike in volume, and the price could go up or down. Regarding this particular deal I did find the following: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/expedia-to-acquire-orbitz-worldwide-for-12-per-share-in-cash-300035187.html Additional Information and Where to Find It Orbitz intends to file with the SEC a proxy statement as well as other   relevant documents in connection with the proposed transaction with   Expedia. The definitive proxy statement will be sent or given to the   stockholders of Orbitz and will contain important information about   the proposed transaction and related matters. SECURITY HOLDERS ARE   URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT CAREFULLY WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE   AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY   AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THOSE DOCUMENTS, BECAUSE THEY WILL   CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. The proxy statement and other relevant   materials (when they become available), and any other documents filed   by Expedia or Orbitz with the SEC, may be obtained free of charge at   the SEC's website, at www.sec.gov. In addition, security holders will   be able to obtain free copies of the proxy statement from Orbitz by   contacting Investor Relations by mail at ATTN: Corporate Secretary,   Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., 500 W. Madison Street, Suite 1000, Chicago,   Illinois 60661. Understandably, it appears as if one must construct the flows oneself because of the work involved to include every loan variation. First, it would be best to distinguish between cash and accrued, otherwise known as the economic, costs. The cash cost is, as you've identified, the payment.  This is a reality for cash management, and it's wise that you wish to track it. However, by accruals, the only economic cost involved in the payment is the interest.  The reason is because the rest of the payment flows from one form of asset to another, so if out of a $1,000 payment, $100 is principal repayment, you have merely traded $100 of cash for $100 of house. The cash costs will be accounted for on the cash flow statement while the accrued or economic costs will be accounted on the income statement. It appears as if you've accounted for this properly.  However, for the resolution that you desire, the accounts must first flow through the income statement followed next instead of directly from assets to liabilities. This is where you can get a sense of the true costs of the home.  To get better accrual resolution, credit cash and debit mortgage interest expense & principal repayment.  Book the mortgage interest expense on the income statement and then cancel the principal repayment account with the loan account.  The principal repayment should not be treated as an expense; however, the cash payment that pays down the mortgage balance should be booked so that it will appear on the cash flow statement. Because you weren't doing this before, and you were debiting the entire payment off of the loan, you should probably notice your booked loan account diverging from the actual.  This proper booking will resolve that. When you are comfortable with booking the payments, you can book unrealized gains and losses by marking the house to market in this statement to get a better understanding of your financial position. The cash flow statement with proper bookings should show how the cash has flowed, so if it is according to standards, household operations should show a positive flow from labor/investments less the amount of interest expense while financing will show a negative flow from principal repayment.  Investing due to the home should show no change due to mortgage payments because the house has already been acquired, thus there was a large outflow when cash was paid to acquire the home. The program should give some way to classify accounts so that they are either operational, investing, or financing. All income & expenses are operational.  All investments such as equities, credit assets, and the home are investing.  All liabilities are financing. To book the installment payment $X which consists of $Y in interest and $Z in principal: To resolve the reduction in principal: As long as the accounts are properly classified, GnuCash probably does the rest for you, but if not, to resolve the expense: Finally, net income is resolved: My guess is that GnuCash derives the cash flow statement indirectly, but you can do the entry by simply: In this case, it happily resembles the first accrued entry, but with cash, that's all that is necessary by the direct method. I mean, the ultimate goal of the takeover would be removing a specific account, so if twitter shuts down all accounts, the it's a win (granted the investors don't care about monetary losses, which of course they do). Still, activist investors can get into proxy fights for board seats and even strategy with just 2% of a company. If there were enough people invested only in removing Trump, the trade of unhappy shareholders vs Trump seems easy to make. Since you are looking at preserving the principal, I would recommend laddered CDs and short term treasuries (TIPs/iBonds) "As long as there is nothing more to this story you aren't sharing, you can expect those bills you paid to come back (you will have to pay them again later). You can be pretty certain that the name he gave you was fake, and that the bank account you paid your bills with was not his. I would not try to do anything at all with the information he gave you because first it is not his, and second your name is already tied to this bank account via your utility bills. In other words that would be illegal and you are already on the list of suspects.   I would say that if you don't call the police they probably won't call you. The police often times do not even waste their time when somebody's light bill was paid with fraudulent financial information or whatever. I have actually seen similar situations play out a number of times and the police have never gotten involved. Disclaimer: I probably don't live where you live, and I'm not an attorney.  But I do know what I am talking about so here's my advice (I know you didn't ask for advice but you probably might benefit from it). Let that money go, sometimes people get you. Take it as a lesson and move on.  If you do end up having to have contact with the police and you don't already know, they will lie to you and try to trick you into acting in a way that is not in your self interest. But then you kind of look guilty if you won't even talk to them, and in this case you did not do anything illegal. So if I was you I would probably just think of where I might be incriminating myself by telling the truth, if there were any parts of my story that would raise any flags, and think of how I would smooth those out ahead of time.   Also for your personal information you do not need to have a sophisticated understanding of computers to do anything you described, if you are familiar with operating a web browser you can do all types of stuff with Paypal. Most people that give off the vibe ""criminal"" are not going to be able to make any money conning people and would probably have given it up before they got to you. The information you have is not like the most valuable stuff ever but somebody that knew what they were doing could use it to take money out of your account, and if they had that and then could get a few other pieces they could really mess up  your life. So that's part of why they say to be careful, any one piece is maybe not so valuable but if you are loose with everything you will probably have a shitty few weeks at some points in the future. ""no aa"" lol" "Its bandwidth, so no, it wouldn't clog up the ""tubes"" like a highway. Everyone who quotes has a fixed amount of bandwidth and an exchange can cut off a firm's connection. The exchanges know who is quoting- you have to buy connections to them to do this stuff. Every exchange I have seen has reporting capability to see who is quoting what, and who is trading what.   Whoever is doing this isn't making any money, because they didn't trade anything! Servers and connectivity are expensive, so they are actually losing money. This situation is almost certainly due to either a new algo ""soft launching"" or being tweaked and having its parameters set too conservatively." Quick, move to the state where the ticket was bought.  Set up a resident and then claim the prize.  Then, move back home, if you want. IMO But both states will still try to make a claim for the tax money, if you give them a reason to try.   They have nothing else to do, but look for revenue.