I heard the following statement of Barron’s magazine piggybacked to today’s (April 28) AP radio news over AFN broadasting:

“Two thirds of the money managers we surveyed think we are due for collection of 10 per cent in the next twelve months before stocks resume their rise. Favorable stocks, General Electric currently tops the list. The Big Money crowd also likes bank shares such as Bank of America and Citi Group.”

As I’m unfamiliar with the word, “Big Money crowd,” I looked for the usage of this word and found a pretty old example:

With bond yields edging up, about a third of the Big Money crowd thinks utility shares will be the worst performers in the next 12 months.” - online.barrons.com 2013/10/21

What does Big Money crowd mean, particularly ‘crowd’ here mean? Is Big Money a proper noun as B and M are shown in uppercase in the above Barron's example? Is "crowd" a mass noun that takes verb in singlar form like "likes" and "thinks"?