Yahoo Finance Institutional investors may adopt severe steps after Poseida Therapeutics, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:PSTX) latest 13% drop adds to a year losses
Key Insights
Significantly high institutional ownership implies Poseida Therapeutics' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
The top 6 shareholders own 54% of the company
Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
If you want to know who really controls Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSTX), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 44% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
And institutional investors endured the highest losses after the company's share price fell by 13% last week. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 42% for shareholders. Also referred to as "smart money", institutions have a lot of sway over how a stock's price moves. As a result, if the decline continues, institutional investors may be pressured to sell Poseida Therapeutics which might hurt individual investors.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Poseida Therapeutics, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for Poseida Therapeutics
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Poseida Therapeutics?
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.
Poseida Therapeutics already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Poseida Therapeutics' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
Our data indicates that hedge funds own 6.3% of Poseida Therapeutics. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. The company's largest shareholder is FMR LLC, with ownership of 14%. With 12% and 8.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, Malin Corporation plc and Astellas Pharma Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.
We also observed that the top 6 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.
Insider Ownership Of Poseida Therapeutics
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.
Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.
We can see that insiders own shares in Poseida Therapeutics, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$12m worth of stock in the US$183m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but we usually like to see higher insider holdings. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 12% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
Private Company Ownership
Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 3.5%, of the company's shares. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.
Public Company Ownership
Public companies currently own 27% of Poseida Therapeutics stock. It's hard to say for sure but this suggests they have entwined business interests. This might be a strategic stake, so it's worth watching this space for changes in ownership.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Poseida Therapeutics better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 4 warning signs for Poseida Therapeutics (of which 2 shouldn't be ignored!) you should know about.
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
