Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Immunic's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions

• 51% of the business is held by the top 7 shareholders

• Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

A look at the shareholders of Immunic, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMUX) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 39% to be precise, is hedge funds. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Because hedge funds owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Immunic, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Immunic

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Immunic?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

Immunic already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Immunic's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Our data indicates that hedge funds own 39% of Immunic. That's interesting, because hedge funds can be quite active and activist. Many look for medium term catalysts that will drive the share price higher. BVF Partners L.P. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.9% of shares outstanding. With 9.9% and 8.1% of the shares outstanding respectively, Avidity Partners Management, L.P. and Soleus Capital Management, L.P. are the second and third largest shareholders.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.