Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in J. M. Smucker implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• The top 19 shareholders own 50% of the company

• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

To get a sense of who is truly in control of The J. M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 83% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or 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 J. M. Smucker, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for J. M. Smucker

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About J. M. Smucker?

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 J. M. Smucker 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. 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 J. M. Smucker's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. J. M. Smucker is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc., with ownership of 12%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.7% and 6.0% of the stock.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 19 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.