Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

• 53% of the business is held by the top 8 shareholders

• Insiders have bought recently

A look at the shareholders of Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPWH) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 77% ownership. 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 take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings.

See our latest analysis for Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings. 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 Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings' 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. Our data indicates that hedge funds own 9.9% of Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. FMR LLC is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 9.9% and 7.1%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 8 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.