Impact of Institutional Ownership on Stock Liquidity: Evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange, Pakistan

Abstract

This study empirically investigates the impact of institutional ownership on stock liquidity; we used a sample size of 84 non-financial companies listed on Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE). Data were gathered for the period of 10 years, starting from 2005 to 2014. This study employs turnover ratio to measure stock liquidity while institutional ownership is measured by dividing number of shares kept by institutions from total number of outstanding shares. The fixed effect model shows that the degree of stock liquidity in Pakistani-listed firms tend to significantly increase for the firms where institutions hold a significant amount of share of that particular firm. This study also finds that ownership by bank and investment companies are positively associated with liquidity, while relationship between ownership by insurance companies and stock liquidity is found to be insignificant. Our evidence supports that many but not all institutional investors play a positive role to improve stock liquidity in Pakistani capital market. The results of this study are important for dealers, traders and brokers, in the sense that they can facilitate investors in efficient resource allocation.