The makeup of a company's shareholders can change over time, moving to a different demographic profile. These gender-bending stocks can see an increase—or decrease—in male ownership for their stocks, reflecting a shifting of the investor base.
New data show which stocks have seen their ownership demographic become more and less feminine over the past three years. At the top of the list is Mondelez International. Compared to where it stood in 2012, ownership in the New Jersey-based snack company is now 63 percent more masculine. Male investors now outnumber females nearly 13 to 1. (Tweet This)
The data come from SigFig, an online investment service with 750,000 investors and $350 billion in tracked and managed assets.
"Over time, stocks can become more popular with women or with men," said Stella Huh, a data scientist at SigFig. "For example, Netflix has become more popular with women in the past three years, among our users." The movie-streaming company has become nearly 40 percent more female owned in the past three years.
Huh noted one reason for this type of shift: "It may be because Netflix has become less of a tech company and more of a mainstream service for watching movies and TV shows."
Mondelez is followed at the top of the list by Comcast Corp. and Travelers Cos., whose shareholder profiles have become 55 percent and 31 percent more masculine, respectively.
Above is a list of the stocks sampled, including the Dow 30 members, and the top 100 stocks in the S&P 500.
The bottom of the list reflects the companies that have seen a more feminine profile of ownership, led by Apache, Gilead, Union Pacific and Eli Lilly.
Increasing the portion of female ownership could be good for a company's return. Research from Terrance Odean and Brad Barber in the 1990s suggested that women traders earn over a percentage point more than men in average annual returns.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.