In This Article:
Key Insights
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Significantly high institutional ownership implies UnitedHealth Group's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
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50% of the business is held by the top 17 shareholders
A look at the shareholders of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 89% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about UnitedHealth Group.
Check out our latest analysis for UnitedHealth Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About UnitedHealth Group?
Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.
We can see that UnitedHealth Group does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of UnitedHealth Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in UnitedHealth Group. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.1% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 8.0% and 6.4% of the stock.
Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 17 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.
While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.