Activism has become a hot topic on Wall Street, with every major study showing that it's on the rise. So far this trend is continuing this year, as measured by the number of shareholder proposals that made it to big companies' proxy ballots. There's also another trend right now, which is that shareholders are becoming more successful in getting their proposals passed. Shareholder activism on the rise The Manhattan Institute has just published the latest edition of its Proxy Monitor report. They've found that so far, the average big company has faced 1.34 proposals from shareholders so far this year, compared to 1.22 last year. That's the highest level the Proxy Monitor has measured in the last five years. Why more proposals are getting on corporate ballots The firm reports that the main driver of this increase is proxy access demands from New York City pension funds. If passed, those demands would enable large, long-term shareholders to nominate their own candidates for the board of... More