system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If stocks are mostly owned and moved by big institutions, how can Wall Street ever be “surprised?”

I’ve seen headlines about how Wall Street is rocked by some market crash or huge pull back. Big banks sometimes rush to liquidate to avoid bankruptcy or margin call.

How can they be “rocked” if they control most of the stocks? It wouldn’t be retail investors since we’re seen as the “little guys”. 

Wouldn’t the major selling be from Wall Street?
gpt
Institutional investors are not a monolithic group. The number and types of agents involved in equity markets are vast and diverse, from pension funds, hedge funds, banks, brokerages, etc.

There are far too many firms and institutions for any one institution to be able to accurately predict the actions of all others.  


If retail investors are small fish in a big pond. Then institutional investors are whales in the pacific ocean.