Invest and Trade Profitably with Jon Johnson

If a stock like OPMR has 91% institutional holding does it have much more room to go? How does that work?

August 30, 2000

It may seem as if all of the institutions that are going to buy the stock have already bought it. What institutions do, however, is accumulate positions over a long period of time. Moreover, when a stock is a winner for an institution, that institution will average up in the position, buying more shares when the stock pulls back to support levels such as the 50 day MVA. That is why we often see stocks make 4 to 5 runs up their short term moving averages and then pullback to the 50 day MVA where the volume jumps higher as the stock taps that level. What is happening is that the stock rises on a tide of all investors, then the shorter term players take profits and the stock falls to the 50 day MVA. At that point the institutions step back in and buy the stock to further build positions in this winner. Thus, a stock that is already largely held by institutions can still enjoy plenty of institutional buying and upside as the institutions like to stay with a stock that is a winner. Eventually after several bases institutions will start to take profits. At that point high volume selling starts showing up and the stock has risen several hundred percent or more. Then it may be time to move on.

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