Institutional Ownership Consensus Score

How consensus, conviction, crowding, and position-change signals summarize institutional behavior.

Category: Whales

Theory

Consensus asks whether institutional sponsorship is broad, economically meaningful, and not just a tiny holding by many funds. The theory is that names repeatedly held by many large institutions with non-trivial portfolio weights have stronger sponsorship and information diffusion than names held by only one isolated fund.

Formula

The live field is consensus_score. It is a market-quarter z-normalized composite, so scores are comparable inside a market-date but not meant to be treated as raw percentages. - breadth_z = z(n_funds_holding) within (market, quarter) - aum_conviction_z = z(aum_weighted_portfolio_pct) - size_z = z(log_total_market_value) - raw_conviction_z = z(avg_portfolio_pct) - consensus_score = z(0.40*breadth_z + 0.30*aum_conviction_z + 0.20*size_z + 0.10*raw_conviction_z)

Validation and best use

The gate checks correlation with market-cap sanity, forward six-month lift, weight perturbation stability, and sensitivity to dropping the smallest funds. Use it as institutional sponsorship context, not as a standalone buy signal.