All companies gain or lose their largest holders at some point, and today the arrow stopped on EDGAR Online Inc. (NASDAQ: EDGR). Edgar Online lost its largest shareholder yesterday according to an SEC filing made today. The OHIO STRS (state teachers retirement) fund sold out of all 2.9844 million shares of common stock.
The share sale was listed as yesterday at an average price of $1.25.This was an 11.38% stake according to our data. That would explain thehuge surge in volume yesterday and would explain an intra-day tradingrange of $1.25 to $1.43 yesterday. Shares did actually rise more than12% today to $1.61, so maybe one of the other holders took a muchlarger stake.
Normally when funds unload positions entirely, they tend to VWAP out ofthem for a certain portion each day. But with over a 10% share theymay have had no choice.
It seems that selling so much data in subscription form when it isavailable on so many sources for free isn’t quite what the OhioTeachers pension managers decided was a great call. Based on the stock reaction to the sale since yesterday, you might determine that the small company is better off without the retirement system owning any shares after all.
Jon C. Ogg
August 7, 2008