Answered By: Farha Hasan
Last Updated: Mar 24, 2022     Views: 2184

Q.
Stock ownership: statistics

Where can I find data on institutional vs. individual ownership of equities in the U.S.?


A.

Institutional holding information going back to 1980 is available by using Thomson Reuters Ownership Databases in WRDS.

  1. In WRDS, go to ‘Thomson Reuters > Institutional (13f) Holdings - s34 > s34 Master File’.
  2. In ‘Step 1’: For the date range, set the beginning and ending month and year.
  3. In ‘Step 2’: Set the code format to ‘CUSIP’. Use CRSP via WRDS to look up CUSIP codes for issuing companies.
  4. Copy and paste the CUSIPs you have already looked up into the ‘Company Codes’ box under ‘Manually enter insider codes’. Enter multiple codes by leaving a single space between them. (Alternatively, create a .txt file containing the codes using Notepad and upload the file.)  Leave all the other boxes in this step unchanged.
  5. In ‘Step 3’: Select the following output variables: ‘Management Company Name > Company Name’ and ‘Shares Held’. 
  6. Select output format.

FactSet includes Holder Type Trend data.  Click on Ownership then search for the security of interest.  Click on Holder Trend Type and adjust dates to locate information.

Some of this ownership information also can be found on FactSet’s “Lionshares” database in an aggregated format.  A detailed overview of Lionshares can be found at this link, and access to Lionshares is available here (through WRDS).