Why are stocks having less institutional investors a “good thing”?
Its pretty much always a positive to have large institutional investors. Here's a few cases where I can see an argument against large institutional investors: In recent years, we've seen corporate raiders and institutional investors that tend to influence management in ways that are focused on short term gain. They'll often go for board seats and disrupt the existing management team. It can serve as a distraction and really hurt morale. Institutional investors also have rules in their prospectus that they are required to abide by. For example, some institutional investors will not hold on to stock below $5. This really affected major banking stocks, some of which ended up doing reverse stock splits to keep their share price high. Institutional investors will also setup specific funds that require a stock to be listed as part of an index (i.e. the SPY, DJIA etc.,). When a stock is removed from an index, big investors leave quickly and the share price suffers.  In recent months, companies like Apple have made their share price more affordable to attract retail investors. It gives an opportunity for retail to feel even more connected to the company. I'm not sure how much this affects overall sales... Generally, a good stock should be able to attract both retail and institutional investors. If there's not a good mix, then its usually a sign that somethings amiss.