Strategic corporate investors: All public and private operating companies that own stock.Corporate insiders: All directors, executives, employees, and other individuals that are directly employed by the issuer.Starting with shares outstanding, S&P Global then subtracts and excludes holdings from strategic owners that include: In the interest of transparency, we are providing additional detail regarding S&P Global’s free float methodology. We work closely with S&P to ensure float data is as accurate and timely as possible. This is just one example of a situation where manual analysis and review are required to ensure accuracy.ĭiscrepancies in float data, amongst various providers, are frequent due to the slightly varying methodologies. Since SEC filings can be dense and complex, the process of analyzing the underlying fundamental information is semi-automated and can require manual adjustments depending on an issuer’s specific circumstances and/or S&P Global’s methodology for estimating free float.įor instance, discrepancies in the timing of filings can sometimes lead to positions being double-counted or under-counted. S&P Global triangulates data from a variety of sources, including regulatory filings with the SEC. More specifically, our free float data provider is S&P Global Market Intelligence, one of the largest and most authoritative sources of market data in the world. While our short interest estimates – both shares and dollar value – are proprietary and derived internally from our algorithms, we combine that data with third-party estimates for free float to display estimated short interest as a percentage of free float (SI % of FF). Due to this subjective nature, free float estimates can and do vary among data service providers, sometimes significantly.Īt ORTEX, we utilize a wide variety of data providers for many of the metrics available on our platform. Making matters slightly more complicated, there is no standardized definition for some of these categories. When you exclude these categories of investors, you arrive at free float. Early investors such as venture capitalists may also sometimes be considered strategic investors. Many large institutions may also be long-term holders, particularly funds that hold over 5% of shares outstanding. For example, insiders and executives often hold stock for long periods of time with no intention of trading. However, some of those shares are restricted from being freely traded, and therefore do not contribute to a company’s overall liquidity as it relates to daily trading activity. Most investors are likely familiar with shares outstanding, which is the total number of shares that a company has issued and exist currently. Among the most important is free float, sometimes called public float, which represents a stock’s overall pool of publicly traded shares. There are many important liquidity metrics that investors watch in order to better understand market conditions.
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