• outstanding_bond@mander.xyz
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    2 days ago

    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
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      1 day ago

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

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        1 day 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.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day 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!

  • Art3mis@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    No fr, just hang out at coffee shops and bars in financial districts, these people have no tact

  • bss03@infosec.pub
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    2 days ago

    I own 4 shares of IBM. A friend of my father’s bought one for me as a birth present, and it split twice since then.

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’ve never quite understood, is a shareholder just someone with stock in a company or is it a level above that?

    If it’s just stocks I theoretically own a few in Disney somewhere. It was a gift for being born.

    • 🌸𝓯𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻🌸@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      You’re one of many minor shareholders. They give you in theory some say in the company, with one vote per share, but in practice you’re ignored. Then you have the major shareholders, owning millions in shares, and having some to big influence in the company. These are the people they invite to shareholder meetings. And then there is the special class of shareholders, think of Musk and Zuckerberg, that own now billions in shares that give them 10 votes per share for example so nobody can outvote them.

      • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I never understood how special shares were legal. I mean, I do understand that it’s because the ownership class wants it that way, but it’s insane.

        It’s literally letting people have their cake of controlling a company while eating it by selling the company off simultaneously.

        • PyroNeurosis@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          Some special shares are cheaper, but you don’t get a vote. Those shares are for the sort that just wanna ride the corporate wave without any “guilt”.

    • nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      If you hold a share, you hold a share. makes you a share holder imho.

      also: congrats on being born from me, too!

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yes, a shareholder is one who owns stocks. But you can say there’s another tier, if you own say 10% of a company’s stock you may actually get to influence how the company runs. That is called the board of directors. They decide what path the company goes down, the CEO, etc. (Technically it’s the shareholders that decide, but your 1 millionth voting power isn’t doing anything when your local billionaire has a billion dollars more stock than you.)

    • village604@adultswim.fan
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      1 day ago

      Yes, a shareholder is someone who owns part of the company, which is what stocks/shares are.

      There are different stock types, though. Common stock is what everyone thinks of when they hear stocks/shared. You own a portion of the company and can vote on stuff, and maybe get some dividends.

      Then there are preferred stocks which are basically a hybrid stock/bond with a fixed regular dividend. They also get first claim to the company assets if it goes under, but they usually don’t have voting rights. Then there are subtypes of preferred stocks.