Follow the Money: 3 Stocks With High Institutional Ownership

Key Points

• Large-cap companies have an average institutional ownership of 70%. Ownership above that level suggests bullish sentiment among the smart money.
• While high-flying stocks like Palantir have considerably lower institutional ownership, examining stocks on the high end of the spectrum can help identify long-term opportunities.
• Netflix, Micron, and Dutch Bros each fit that mold, with institutional ownership above 80%, suggesting that those stocks present strong upside potential.

When it comes to investing, strong opinions are common, but identifying long-term opportunities often comes down to following the smart money, i.e., institutional investors. Keeping an eye on investment banks, endowments, pensions, mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity, and insurance companies can shed light on equities that could benefit everyday investors. 

On average, the smart money owns around 70% of any given large-cap company’s float. For context, one of 2025’s high-flying stocks—Palantir NASDAQ: PLTR—currently has institutional ownership of just 45.65%, as investors remain concerned about the stock’s elevated forward price-to-earnings ratio of 244.02. 

To that end, MarketBeat has identified three stocks with higher-than-usual institutional ownership that each warrant consideration in investors’ buy-and-hold portfolios.   

Micron Technology: 80.84% Institutional Ownership 

Micron Technology NASDAQ: MU has made a name for itself on Wall Street by being an integral player in the semiconductor space.

NVIDIA NASDAQ: NVDA may get the lion’s share of headlines in that space, but demand for Micron’s flash memory and solid-state drives has seen the stock gain nearly 150% in 2025 compared to NVIDIA’s 43.66% year-to-date (YTD) gain.   

While NVIDIA’s institutional ownership stands at just over 65%, professional investors have bought up 80.84% of Micron’s float. In the past 12 months, 1,544 institutional buyers have injected $17.50 billion of inflows into Micron, easily outpacing the $11.17 billion in outflows. 

The bulk of Micron’s YTD gain has come since Aug. 1, as demand for the company’s high-bandwidth memory and data center products has recently picked up momentum.

Supplementing that strength, the company has ongoing partnerships with companies like Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ: AMD, Astera Labs NASDAQ: ALAB, and Intel NASDAQ: INTC.

Vanguard and BlackRock, the two biggest owners of Micron’s stock, hold more than 196 million shares. Meanwhile, over the past 12 months, Capital World Investors—the third largest holder of Micron—increased its position by more than 30% to 70.81 million shares. 

Netflix: 80.93% Institutional Ownership

Netflix NASDAQ: NFLX recently made headlines after announcing a 10-for-1 stock split.

Shares are up more than 23% so far this year—not spectacular, but still outperforming the S&P 500. Nonetheless, Netflix is still highly favored by Wall Street.

Among other factors, that’s partly the result of the subscription-based consumer discretionary company’s net income increasing nearly 94% from $4.49 billion in 2022 to $8.71 billion in 2024. On a trailing 12-month basis, Netflix’s net income is currently $10.43 billion, showing the uptrend in profitability is both strong and sustainable.

That’s something that institutional investors have also taken note of, with ownership standing at 80.93%. Over the past 12 months, 2,804 institutional buyers have outnumbered 1,838 sellers, with inflows of $65.51 billion easily surpassing outflows of $31.92 billion.

Netflix’s four largest holders—Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity, and State Street—hold a collective 111.87 million shares of NFLX. Meanwhile, the stock’s current short interest is just 1.44%.

Dutch Bros: 85.54% Institutional Ownership

When it comes to retail coffeehouse chains, Starbucks NASDAQ: SBUX and Dunkin are often the first two companies that come to mind—but Dutch Bros NYSE: BROS is the fastest-growing coffee chain in the United States by revenue.

And while Starbucks’ institutional ownership is a respectable 72.29%, the Seattle-based company trails its growth-focused counterpart by a sizable margin. 

Currently, 85.54% of Dutch Bros’ float is held by institutional investors.

The company—which will be operating in 23 states by the end of the year—has now beat earnings for 11 consecutive quarters, while its annual EPS grew by more than 1,030% year-over-year from 2023 to 2024.

Meanwhile, the company’s net cash from operating activities has increased 240.6% since 2021.

The smart money has taken note. Over the past 12 months, 361 institutional buyers have invested $2.65 billion, versus 190 institutional sellers pulling out $1.90 billion.

Over the same period, Vanguard—its biggest holder—has increased its position by more than 14% and now owns 11.335 million shares. 

At the same time, Fidelity and BlackRock—the second and third largest holders of Dutch Bros—increased their positions by more than 17% and 28%, respectively, and together own 13.772 million shares.