
Show HN: Common ownership between S&P 500 companies - greatwave1
https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/sharedownership
======
greatwave1
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been using a break from school to take on a
number of financial data projects, some of which I’ve posted on here. The
latest is a dashboard that allows you to find shared ownership between any two
S&P 500 companies, using data scraped from Yahoo Finance.

This project was inspired by “The Problem of 12”, the fact that most public
companies are increasingly being controlled by a small group of institutional
investors:
[https://ssrn.com/abstract=3247337](https://ssrn.com/abstract=3247337)

There is compelling evidence that this shared ownership can lead to
anticompetitive outcomes, such as lower wages and higher prices:
[https://ssrn.com/abstract=2427345](https://ssrn.com/abstract=2427345).

My goal is to highlight the extent to which ownership of many competing
companies is being concentrated among a small number of institutions, and
spark discussion about this problem.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements to the dashboard, or
ideas for new projects for me to work on!

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legitster
This data is kind of interesting, but holdup:

>"We are rapidly moving into a world in which the bulk of equity capital of
large companies with dispersed ownership will be owned by a small number of
institutions... It is not an exaggeration to say that even if this mega-trend
begins to taper off, the majority of the 1,000 largest U.S. companies will be
controlled by a dozen or fewer people over the next ten to twenty years." >\-
John C. Coates, IV, Harvard Law, "The Problem of Twelve"

The data on the page counteracts this point, nearly all the examples presented
are of wealth management funds or holding companies, representing millions and
millions of people. The #1 investor is literally Vanguard, the investor
cooperative.

~~~
greatwave1
That quote isn't talking about wealth inequality, it's referencing
concentration in corporate governance power.

While funds like Vanguard are financed by investments from millions of people,
the leaders of those funds control the voting power of all of their shares.

This could cause anticompetitive behavior, when the same funds/holding
companies have large stakes in all of the players within a given industry.

~~~
rckoepke
I really feel that Vanguard et. al should let votes be pass through. I'm sure
there would be massive amounts of abstention but I don't see how that would be
a problem per se.

