• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Westgold Resources' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

• 50% of the business is held by the top 14 shareholders

• Insiders have been buying lately

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Every investor in Westgold Resources Limited (ASX:WGX) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 68% to be precise, is institutions. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And last week, institutional investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit AU$4.1b in market cap. One-year return to shareholders is currently 60% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

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

See our latest analysis for Westgold Resources

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 Westgold Resources 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. 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 Westgold Resources' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Westgold Resources is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that L1 Capital Pty. Limited is the largest shareholder with 11% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 6.8% and 6.0%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 14 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.