ABSTRACT
The number of individuals owning stock in the United States was increasing, but they were not keeping pace with the growth of the institutional investors. By 1961, institutions owned some 80 percent of outstanding corporate bonds. In 1969, the National Bureau of Economic Research conducted a study for the SEC on institutional investors. The largest institutional investors were the life insurance companies. The insurance industry began a series of mergers and acquisitions in the 1960s that sometimes involved noninsurance businesses. The investment companies were another growing institutional investor. They were holding large amounts of equity securities, mostly in established corporations. Institutional investors were seeking membership on the exchanges, which would allow them to obtain executions at member rates, rather than the much higher fixed commission rates imposed on retail customers.
