Men e women they reason differently, both neuroscience and the misunderstandings with the opposite sex we deal with on a daily basis tell us so. On the occasion of Women's Day, let's take stock of one of the lesser-known differences between men and women: that in investment choices.
From our website Advise Only many registered users have made theirs investment portfolios. Respecting everyone's privacy, but analyzing investments on "large numbers“, we analyzed the differences between wallets of male and female users. Today we will go one step further: understand if they are more suitable for investment men or women.
Tell me what gender you are and I will tell you how you will invest
There are numerous studies on the impact of gender differences in investment choices. Here are the main ones.
Barber and Odean (2001) find that the returns on investments made by women areaverage better than those of men. Also, women have fewer expectations in terms ofperformance ed they avoid taking too many risks.
Uno Boston Consulting Group study highlights how women tend to investigate their risk profile more accurately, setting clear financial goals, looking more at long term and investing with cautious style.
A study of the Americana Credit Union National Association, Entitled "Women's Financial Survey", certifies that only 43% of women have saved up to protect themselves from emergencies against 63% of men. Things are worse if we look at the data aggregated by age: in the 44-53 age group, 36% of women have sufficient funds to survive, but are unable to go six months without a salary. In the 55-64 age group, 58% of women have savings, but men are well above it, with 82% on average. Americans call it "savings gap".
The American Prudential conducted an analysis on the individuals representing the largest income earner in the family. Only 20% of women in this condition consider themselves very prepared to make investment decisions, the male counterparts are 38%. Also, while 40% of men enjoy investing, only 20% of women enjoy it. Finally the 70% of women consider themselves savers rather than investor (60% for men).
A research by the British Research for National Savings and Investments certifies that a quarter of female workers he is unable to set anything aside.
Finally medicine e psychology show that the testosterone it is associated with self-confidence. This involves a greater risk appetite than men.
Italian women and money
The research and documentation center Luigi Einaudi, in collaboration with Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, interviewed a sample of 685 women of age to realize theSurvey on savings and investment choices of Italians. These are the main results.
- Il 62,3% of women failed to save against 60,5% of men. Plus the exponents of the fairer sex they save less than men: one in three saves less than 5% of their income, while in men it is only one in five. This happens despite the perception of the need to save even be stronger among women (28,5%) than among men (25,8%).
- - savings goals coincide between men and women: safety, liquid assets, return short term.
- The difference is stark in the risk appetite: in the category of minimal risk aversion54% of women are recognized (against 43,7% of men), while in the category of maximum risk aversion only 1,8% of women recognize themselves (against 3% of men).
Do men or women invest better?
Definitely women they invest less because they save less. This is partly due to the fact that they perceive on average lower salaries compared to men (gender wage gap). In any case, putting some money aside and investing it allows you to face the future with greater serenity, especially if you are dealing with the Italian welfare state.
On the other hand, the greater risk appetite than men implies a higher volatility of their wallets. This is because, by definition, anyone who wants a high return must accept a high risk of loss and vice versa: "nothing ventured, nothing gained", to use the popular adage. The women are more cautious and invest for the long term.
Numerous researches carried out on Wall Street show that the women they get best performance, especially in periods crisis. According to the consulting firm Rothestein Kass, women-managed funds registered above-average profits after the crisis of 2008. According to the prof. Odeal, professor at the University of California, since 2007 women's investments have made 4,6% morethan those of men.
Males against females on the Advise Only site
Through an anonymous procedure, which does not violate the privacy of our users, we have built the walletsAO Men e AO Women. Both are an average of the portfolios made by the men and women registered on our site.
From the graph it can be seen that:
- - men they assume greater risks: they prefer actions (+11% compared to women) and invest more emerging markets (9,6% versus 7,5%);
- thehome bias (tendency to invest more in domestic stocks than international stocks) not affected by particular gender differences: women invest in domestic stocks for 23,88% and men for 24,3%).
Comparing wallets AO Men e AO Women, it emerges that:
- men run greater risks (the composite risk index is on average 12, while it is equal to 9 for women);
- i men's wallets performed better both from 27 September 2012, the launch date (8,72% against 6,1%), and from one year to this part (5,60% against 3,75%). This result is due to the better stock results compared to bonds in the last 2 years;
- the women though got one best performance in terms of Sharpe Ratio: 1,82 against 1,65.
