Institutional investors must be pleased after a 26% gain last week that adds to ACM Research, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ACMR) one-year returns

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in ACM Research implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 10 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Insider ownership in ACM Research is 20%

Our free stock report includes 1 warning sign investors should be aware of before investing in ACM Research. Read for free now.

A look at the shareholders of ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 57% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Last week’s 26% gain means that institutional investors were on the positive end of the spectrum even as the company has shown strong longer-term trends. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 5.4%.

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

Check out our latest analysis for ACM Research

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ACM Research?

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 ACM Research does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 ACM Research, (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. ACM Research is not owned by hedge funds. The company's CEO Hui Wang is the largest shareholder with 16% of shares outstanding. With 6.6% and 6.3% of the shares outstanding respectively, BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

We did some more digging and found that 10 of the top shareholders account for roughly 51% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of ACM Research

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of ACM Research, Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just US$1.6b, and insiders have US$314m worth of shares in their own names. That's quite significant. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 18% stake in ACM Research. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 5.3% stake in ACM Research. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some investors might be encouraged by this, since private equity are sometimes able to encourage strategies that help the market see the value in the company. Alternatively, those holders might be exiting the investment after taking it public.

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. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for ACM Research that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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