Alamos Gold Inc.'s (TSE:AGI) large institutional owners must be happy as stock continues to impress, up 6.5% over the past week

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Alamos Gold's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• The top 25 shareholders own 44% of the company
• Insiders have been selling lately

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Every investor in Alamos Gold Inc. (TSE:AGI) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 67% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained CA$1.1b in market cap last week. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 62%.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Alamos Gold

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Alamos Gold?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Alamos Gold. 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. 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 Alamos Gold's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Alamos Gold. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Van Eck Associates Corporation with 8.0% of shares outstanding. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 4.0% of common stock, and FMR LLC holds about 3.7% of the company stock.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 Alamos Gold

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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Alamos Gold Inc.. As it is a large company, we'd only expect insiders to own a small percentage of it. But it's worth noting that they own CA$48m worth of shares. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 33% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Alamos Gold. 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:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Alamos Gold you should be aware of.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.