Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[WilliamMunny]

Your instincts are correct, north. Individual investors, whether they are "professional biotech investors" or not, are not required to report their holdings to the SEC unless the number of shares equals at least 5% of the company's total shares outstanding. Therefore, unless one holds something over 4.1 million shares there is no requirement to file. I know of a number of individual investors - at least one of whom by background would qualify as a professional biotech investor - who each own hundreds of thousands of shares of AVXL, holdings which never get reported. For those funds (private or not) that manage over $100 million in assets quarterly filing of holdings is required. No doubt a number of smaller pools of capital below that $100 million limit also own hundreds of thousands of shares of the stock. With the exception of index funds, more sizable institutions are not comfortable owning pre revenue (or at least pre drug approval) companies and/or ones that have a market cap below $1 billion and trade less than $10 million in volume on a daily average, like AVXL. They are too speculative, too volatile, and too illiquid for their tastes. These managers also require more sell side coverage than small companies typically get so they can dig into their files and wave those brokerage reports at their bosses if a stock heads south. With filings at the EMA and the FDA this coming year and perhaps even an approval or two by yearend, I believe that AVXL will gain the publicity and traction necessary to induce sell side coverage and real institutional appetite. In my view, the slog from single digits to $30 will prove to have been a lot more difficult than the run from $30 to $100.