Why “Plenty of Institutional Ownership” Tells You Very Little About Borrow
It is commonly believed that a high proportion of institutional ownership implies heavy borrowing. In reality, ownership and accessibility are only weakly correlated.
Large holders may be unable or unwilling to lend due to internal restrictions, voting priorities, or operational constraints. Even when lending programs are in place, inventories may be segmented, restricted, or withdrawn without prior notice.
Institutional ownership statistics describe who owns the shares, not whether those shares are available to the lending market. Treating these two factors as interchangeable remains one of the most common misconceptions in stock lending.