About Timothy Gokey
In an August 2022 appearance on CNBC, Broadridge Financial CEO Tim Gokey discussed the growth of retail investing and the role of technology in shareholder engagement. Gokey described Broadridge as powering "the critical infrastructure behind governance, investing and communications," and said the company clears and settles tens of billions of dollars in trades daily. He stated that retail investing is a "long-term trend" and that "meme stocks only accounted for something like 1%" of activity, characterizing the growth as "much broader than the headline noise." Gokey noted that Broadridge's data shows a shift in assets "from the so-called silent generation to younger investors and smaller accounts."
Gokey also highlighted changes in how retail investors participate in corporate governance. He said that 86% of proxy activity was digital and 97% of votes were returned electronically, and that Broadridge upgraded its proxy voting system to allow investors to "vote with one click and set preferences to be alerted for topics you care about." He added that this is "making it easier for retail investors to get engaged." Gokey advised viewers to "be a trader but be an owner also," and said the mix between funds and individual stock-picking "will be tensioned back and forth."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Timothy Gokey's recent appearances.
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Transcript (5 segments)
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Host0:13
Retail investors can have their voices heard now more than ever. Our next guest has helped facilitate the votes for 365 million shares on its platform just so far this season. Let's bring in Tim, the CEO of Broadridge, a very big company. They do a lot of the things that you don't see that makes the financial markets work. Thank you very much for joining us here on this special. I wondered whether or not you can give us your take on just what it means to see the kinds of activity that we have seen in retail markets with the so-called meme stocks and beyond and what it means for financial markets overall.
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Timothy Gokey0:54
Absolutely. As an investor and public company, we clear and settle 10 to 9 trillion dollars of trades every day. It does give us a unique vantage point. One thing interesting to your viewers: the activity on the top of the market we have been hearing about in the first segment of this show is built on a much broader underlying megatrend around the democratization of investing. One of the things we see, one way we get paid is by the number of individual positions. If you own one share of IBM or 100 shares, it is one position. That continues to grow over a decade around high single digits, but last year it grew 26%. This very broad-based growth in retail investing is a long-term trend. It is not just what is happening right now. It is really what has been happening over quite a while.
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Host2:22
I am not that old. I remember early on in my investing career having all of those mailings, the proxy voting procedures. I have to send these things back again, a prepaid stamped envelope for you to send things back. There was not a lot of retail participation at all at that level. We relied on the mutual fund managers that managed our money to make those votes and everything else. You feel as though the times have shifted a bit? You think that folks like you and others have their individual voices heard more as shareholders than we have in decades past?
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Timothy Gokey2:57
I think there is a real shift. One of the things we work on for our clients is really to increase the digital aspect of it. This past year, 86% of all the activity was digital. 97% of the votes were returned electronically. One of the things we did for investors is upgrade our proxy vote. You can vote with one click, set preferences to be alerted for topics that you might be interested in if there is a proposal related to one of the companies you own. It is making it easier for retail investors to get engaged.
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Host3:45
One of the things, you mentioned the app and technology being a big driver of having shareholder voices heard. What do you envision that shareholder voice looking like in the next five or 10 years? Is it more active or does it get drowned out by the fact that there is tension back and forth? When everything goes to pass, that creates more ability to have alpha through active management. But if we take a five-year view, I think because we get all these positions and we really have great insight into who the investors are, we are really beginning to see that shift of the assets from this so-called silent generation to younger investors.
