I had a pretty good day in relative terms today. Leading the charge were Premium Standard, Patterson-UTI, YRC Worldwide and Jones Apparel. Trailing the pack were Cemex, Lithia Automotive, Group 1 Automotive and Komag.

My main intent in this post is to encourage everyone to vote their proxies. We have a responsibility as capitalists to watch over the firms that we own to the greatest extent possible, and to encourage them to foster greater shareholder friendliness. I don’t want shareholder votes to be like ballot initiatives in California, where one becomes an amateur legislator, but I do want the ability to vote down directors, and for 5% of the shareholders to be able to propose binding rules to the company, for the shareholders as a whole to vote on.

In my own voting, I vote against management when they have not provided an adequate relative return, and vote with them when they have, aside from the principles listed above. If all mutual funds voted this way, corporate America would clean up its act, and rapidly.
Full Disclosure: long PORK, PTEN, YRCW, JNY, CX, LAD, GPI, KOMG