I just got my Walt Disney Company shareholder thing, how should I vote? Didn't SaveDisney.com let us know the best way last year?

I just got my Walt Disney Company shareholder thing, how should I vote? Didn't SaveDisney.com let us know the best way last year?

No, they let you know THEIR way. If you really need someone else to tell you how to vote, then you probably shouldn't vote at all.

I personally didn't have the time to read through the whole booklet (and I know as soon as start to read it this time I'm going to fall asleep). Last time I liked that savedisney offered suggestions. You could choose whether or not to follow them.

Agreed. But the board offers suggestions as well that you can choose whether or not to follow. They even conveniently offer a single box to check to go with what they recommend! ;)

You don't have to read the whole annual report and proxy package; you can skim it to get at least a general sense of the issues involved. I think it's better to be able to make up your own mind instead of having a clearly biased group like the Roy and Stan Show try to brainwash you.

Agreed. But the board offers suggestions as well that you can choose whether or not to follow. They even conveniently offer a single box to check to go with what they recommend! ;)

You don't have to read the whole annual report and proxy package; you can skim it to get at least a general sense of the issues involved. I think it's better to be able to make up your own mind instead of having a clearly biased group like the Roy and Stan Show try to brainwash you.

Go to SaveDisney.com to the "Business" section.

If you look around enough in that section they link you to a stock/online posting service that is about the discussion of Disney stock. There you can click around and read the backgrounds of the members of the Disney Board and whatever comments are posted about each Proxy ballot item. It isn't much, but there 'tis.

Alternatively, you can join for free Motley Fools.com or MarketWatch.com or any stock analysis website, the NYSE stock ticker symbol for Disney is DIS, and research around in the "message" "chat" or "bulletin board" or other interactive posting area what stockholder "buzz" might be about the Disney Proxy ballot this year.

You can also go to Google News or Yahoo! News or Yahoo! Financial News and search for "Disney" or play around with advanced search features and get some ideas of business news around Disney lately.

You can research all the controversy from last year, too, and get the names of the four Disney Board members who Save Disney recommended a "withhold" vote on. All four are still on the Board, including George Mitchell who is now Chairman of the Board.

Basically this should only take a "small" amount of time to do. Depends on whether, since the last Shareholders' meeting March 3, 2004 if you were watching and following Disney business news closely or not. The closer you followed it, the easier it should be today to mark your Proxy ballot. The less close you followed Disney business news, the more you'll need to do a bit of research homework to get up to speed.

The stock of Disney has improved. People are returning to the theme parks. Movies suffered except for a few. ABC is improving thanks to at least two TV shows of theirs this year reaching "hit" status. ESPN continues to do well. Disney issued a lot of home videos last year. Take a closer look. Disneyland Paris is still under heavy debt load and they had to ask creditors to help out, again. California Adventure and the movie-theme park second gate of Disneyland Paris aren't doing so well. Only "Incredibles", "The Village" and "Princess Diaries 2" and "National Treasure" did "hit status" business, everything else was so-so. A TV network needs more sustaining power than two hit TV series in the longer term. Disneyland is being spruced up for the 50th Anniversary, but what are the E-ticket-type rides that will be opening there or the other Disney parks? How will the new Disney park in Hong Kong fare this year? Has the value of Disney stock improved in the last year that you believe the growth is solid and sustainable, or is it built on a house of cards?

Only each stock holder can answer these questions based on research, ongoing following news, and knowing Disney products. It's that classic question to ask as an investor first and as a fan second: Are you better off with Disney stock today than a year ago? And in the next 2, 3 or 4 or 5 years will you continue to be better off by holding Disney stock, buying more, or selling it? Then you vote your Proxy ballot accordingly.

SaveDisney.com doesn't offer much guidance this year, that's true, other than they continue to oppose that Michael Eisner's still in charge there, etc. Some of the institutional investors who were so vocally negative a year ago also offer mixed guidance. ISS likes what it sees since March 2004 and plans to vote favorably for the directors of Disney and along Disney's guidelines for the other issues. I've heard/seen other opinions on the 'Net from other shareholders. Ultimately, you have to use your product knowledge, news trends, research and estimation of what stock price you'd like to see Disney head towards to vote the way you see fit.

It's a very different atmosphere than a year ago.

There's not as much time as a year ago, though. The Shareholders' Meeting is February 11th, very soon. So do the best you can with using the Internet
to dredge up the news of the past year, research threads on this section of Mouse Planet, etc.

Good luck, and happy Proxy ballot marking!

In case you want to know what the shareholder advisory services are recommending:

ISS recommends for all directors, for both company proposals, for the shareholder greenmail proposal and against the shareholder China proposal.
Glass Lewis recommends for all directors except Mitchell, for both company proposals and against both shareholder proposals.