The Basics of Institutional Ownership Data

Portfolio holdings are gathered by Vickers Stock Research and processed by Valuation Technologies LLC.

There are four primary sources of portfolio data - 13(f) filings with the SEC, Mutual fund reports, foreign ownership reports and insurance company filings.

13(f) filings - According to Regulation 13(f) all money managers, regardless of where they are domiciled, which manage U.S. equity assets of $100 million or more must file quarterly with the Securities Exchange Commission. Since several third party vendors use these filings to compute managers' performance statistics, many institutions with less than $100 million in equity assets file voluntarily. These filings are due at the SEC within 45 days of the end of each calendar quarter.

Only those securities which are found in the SEC's Master Security Reference List need be included on a 13(f) report. In practice, most managers report all equity securities owned because it is easier to include them than exclude those not on the Master List.

A typical 13(f) report will show:

  1. CUSIP
  2. Security name
  3. Number of shares owned at end of quarter
  4. Market value of position at quarter's end
  5. Voting authority and investment discretion for each position.

An especially important aspect of the regulation requires that the institution report its holdings in aggregate, and not by portfolio. For example, FMR Corp. makes one filing which indicates its aggregate position in ABC Inc. stock held for its own purposes as well as the sum of all positions held by the various Fidelity funds which it manages.

Mutual fund reports - These filings are required at least 2 times a year and are filed according to a fund's fiscal year. Filings are made via fund semiannual and annual reports called N30D filings. While many mutual funds report quarterly, they are not required to do so.

A typical mutual fund filing will show:

  1. Security name
  2. Number of shares owned at end of period
  3. Market value of position at end of period.

Foreign ownership reports - Reports from Canadian, Latin American and