Candel Therapeutics, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:CADL) latest 15% decline adds to one-year losses, institutional investors may consider drastic measures

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Candel Therapeutics' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• The top 12 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Ownership research, combined with past performance data can help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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A look at the shareholders of Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CADL) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 46% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And institutional investors saw their holdings value drop by 15% last week. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 30% 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 downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Candel Therapeutics, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

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

See our latest analysis for Candel Therapeutics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Candel Therapeutics?

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 Candel Therapeutics. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. 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 Candel Therapeutics, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Candel Therapeutics. FMR LLC is currently the company's largest shareholder with 14% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.6% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.9% by the third-largest shareholder.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 12 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Candel Therapeutics

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Candel Therapeutics, Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just US$257m, and insiders have US$21m worth of shares, in their own names. 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 38% 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

We can see that Private Companies own 8.2%, of the shares on issue. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Candel Therapeutics (2 can't be ignored) that 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.