I recently read an article written by an american author and I though I would share a summarised version with you. The article centres around the ideology that women are in fact better investors than their male counterparts. In a recent Washington Post article, academics have long known that when women invest they tend to beat men solidly by 2.3% on an individual basis and 4.6% when women work together and yet we have so few women fund managers.

The article references an array of studies that aim to distinguish the relative behavioural differences between men and women and the results are quite astonishing;

1. A study produced by the University Of California found that men traded 45% more than women did. This level of excessive trading is part of the reason that male returns ranked below returns of women, not to mention the costs associated with excessive trading.
2. Men were proven to have acted more aggressively on stock specific tip off’s where women preferred to diversify their portfolio amongst diversified investment funds. How many people have taken excessive gambles on specific stocks because they have heard word that ‘This is the next big thing’, ‘This will change the world’, and according to the study the majority seem to be male.
3. When you have a portfolio that has achieved a 35% year-to-date return what do you do?. Research has shown that women are more likely to cash in the gains as they happen, while men are more likely to hold on to positions believing that selling a winner is in fact ‘Giving up on it’.
4. The final study and probably my favourite of the lot reads as follows, ‘ You have three computer screens in your home office, two live market video feeds, a pager with stock headlines running and subscriptions to nine newsletters. You are a virtual trading desk unto yourself and your best friend calls to have a chat about investments’. Research has shown that men are more likely to avoid conversations of this nature as they tend to avoid second opinions like the plague, for fear of being contradicted. On the opposite side of the scale women tend to work together on investing and sharing investment ideas.

In conclusion I am not advising that if you are a female and have a keen interest in investing that you should run out the door and start your own hedge fund, but what it does highlight is that retirement investing is done best methodically and less emotionally. So maybe its time to let the wife take control of your future.