A look at the shareholders of Danaos Corporation (NYSE:DAC) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual insiders with 46% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As market cap fell to US$1.3b last week, insiders would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Danaos.

View our latest analysis for Danaos

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Danaos?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

We can see that Danaos 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 Danaos, (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 Danaos. The company's CEO John Coustas is the largest shareholder with 44% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 2.5% and 2.1% of the stock.

Our research also brought to light the fact that roughly 51% of the company is controlled by the top 4 shareholders suggesting that these owners wield significant influence on the business.

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 Danaos

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.