Realized Gains: Women ARE Better Investors
From studies by Fidelity (here’s another one to read) to countless articles, the question asking if “Women Are Better Investors” have been asked more often than I would like to admit. Yet, that is often pondered by not only institutions, publications but even the amazing people in question - Women. This question has been a thing even before we entered this reset that we are witnessing today as the pandemic. From the times of not being able to vote to seeing annual days in which we call out how much we are paid less than our male counterparts, the reports are stacked against us. Even more if you have hues that resemble mine.
Yet, while this could annoy me - it appears to be a topic that I have been involved in or speaking about in great detail over the last 18 months or even longer. Even was invited by Angela Yee to a Facebook Audio Room speaking about “Women and Investing” (listen to the recording here!) and one of the core things I spoke about was that if Women were paid more that would level set so much of what they were able to do. If we were paid more, we could align the bills better and then find better ways to invest more. Invest in retirement streams and of course areas like stocks and now cryptocurrency. Within that conversation, I called out about how many feel that Women aren’t confident enough to invest in the stock market or any sort of security. Which, if you look to iconic investors like Warren Buffet and others - you would see how they analyze certain funds thoroughly before purchasing. I would think that Women doing research on the same funds as a Man would align with checking the fundamental analysis to make sure that their portfolio would perform well over time.
Speaking of cryptocurrency, I saw this article about Women not aligning themselves within this area. Well my scroll of Twitter and other social media platforms would call that notion bluff. From us creating companies within the Metaverse space to leading podcasts to becoming Thought Leaders - again, I would double down on the fact that this is beyond the truth. This article calls out some other women who are snatching it within crypto. And I’ve seen and called out how this space is growing for POC and gave one nod to a Black Woman who is killing it (I follow a good bit on Twitter).
Over the last couple months, I had the opportunity to continue to have conversations about Women and Investing through the Investing Platform Public. I’ve sat on an all-woman panel speaking in detail about this for Columbia Women's Business Society (CWBS). Talking about Investing Confidence. This panel was amazing due to the fact that I told my story along with sharing my Mother’s about how confidence of perspective can impact unrealized gains of your portfolio. This conversation leveled up to a couple paragraphs up about regards of the gender wealth gap and how it can most definitely impact how Women see or actually start investing. OR even invest more. Let’s put a pin in that for another post.
Another opportunity came via Public in which was a 6 month pilot program with CommonWealth which worked with 240 beginner investors–all women of color with incomes between $30,000 and $80,000–were invited to invest in the stock market. The amazing participants were provided with $250 in seed money in their Public.com account to start building a portfolio and connected with other program participants through peer discussion groups on the platform. Half of the participants were also assigned a mentor to provide support and guidance through their investing journey. I was one of the 4 Mentors selected to work with a group of women within the program. While I enjoyed the program and the participants, one of the things that echoed loud to me was how many see that more women need to be investing more and how the wealth + pay gap can be a critical part to the unrealized gains that could be see in their portfolio, rather than if one is opened or not. CommonWealth did a great job of a write up about the program and the feedback from the participants. But one stat stuck out to me among the study: 80% of survey participants agreed that “without the $250 in seed money I would not have been able to start investing.”
Again, we need to be paid more. But also, as one participant said - “I see investing as something for me, I have the ability to participate in investing activities. Where else would I have been able to buy portions of stocks? Now I see myself as an investor.”
–Pilot Participant
Here’s a recap from the event:
Social Media Posts around this amazing program: Financial Wellness, My Yahoo Finance IG Post, Yahoo Finance Press Release
Women are better investors, hands down. We know how to think things through. We know how to pocket investments within positions. We know how to see through the buzz to see what’s buildable. So many isms that I could call out. But, as Women being my core demographic - I have to speak to this thoroughly. I love to see that even while some platforms are still holding the narrative asking if Women are good investors, that there are some shifting the narrative through programs and positioning. I love it here.
