Key Insights

• Youdao's significant public companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

• NetEase, Inc. owns 55% of the company

• Insiders own 20% of Youdao

A look at the shareholders of Youdao, Inc. (NYSE:DAO) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that public companies own the lion's share in the company with 55% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Following a 9.4% decrease in the stock price last week, public companies suffered the most losses, but insiders who own 20% stock also took a hit.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Youdao, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Youdao

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Youdao?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that Youdao does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Youdao, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Youdao. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is NetEase, Inc. with 55% of shares outstanding. This essentially means that they have extensive influence, if not outright control, over the future of the corporation. With 16% and 8.3% of the shares outstanding respectively, Feng Zhou and Orbis Investment Management Limited are the second and third largest shareholders. Feng Zhou, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Chief Executive Officer.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Youdao

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.