Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Beyond's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 10 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Insiders have been buying lately

If you want to know who really controls Beyond, Inc. (NYSE:BYON), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 70% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And so it follows that institutional investors was the group most impacted after the company's market cap fell to US$626m last week after a 8.4% drop in the share price. Needless to say, the recent loss which further adds to the one-year loss to shareholders of 38% might not go down well especially with this category of shareholders. Often called "market movers", institutions wield significant power in influencing the price dynamics of any stock. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Beyond, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Beyond.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Beyond?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

We can see that Beyond 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 Beyond, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. It looks like hedge funds own 8.4% of Beyond shares. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Our data shows that JAT Capital Management, L.P. is the largest shareholder with 10% of shares outstanding. With 9.6% and 8.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and JAT Capital Management LP 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 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. 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 Beyond

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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 Beyond, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$8.2m worth of stock in the US$626m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 20% 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Beyond better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Beyond .

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com