Page 25 - ARUBA TODAY

BUSINESS Friday 19 May 2017
A25

Many women think men are the better investors; they’re not

STAN CHOE To check confidence lev- and the percentage has
AP Business Writer els, Fidelity asked pollsters been on a slow decline
NEW YORK (AP) — Many to survey about 1,000 inves- since 2008, according to a
men and women think tors early this year and ask recent study by Morning-
men are the better inves- whether they thought men star. Managers attribute
tors. They’re wrong. or women had the better much of that to the small
After checking how 8 mil- returns in 2016. percentage of women
lion of its customers did Men and women answered throughout the financial in-
during 2016, Fidelity Invest- roughly the same way. dustry.
ments found that women Nearly half of each group When relatively few ana-
did better than men by an thought there would be lysts are women, that
average of 0.4 percent- no difference (49 percent leaves few potential fund
age points. of men and 47 percent of managers.
The difference in perfor- women). But among those To better engage with fe-
mance is small, and it’s al- who guessed that one male customers, Fidelity
ways dangerous to make gender would come out now writes all its promotion-
big generalizations out of on top, the vast majority al materials with an imagi-
small slices of data. But it said it would be men. Only nary, 38-year-old target
slots in with other research 9 percent of women (and 9 customer in mind. She’s a
that suggests women tend percent of men) said they woman, and her name is
to take a longer-term view thought women earned Susie.
of investing. higher returns in 2016. “Everyone in the compa-
They are more likely to buy One of the main reasons ny knows Susie and says In this Wednesday, March 2, 2016, file photo, Kathleen Murphy,
president of Fidelity Personal Investing, a unit of Fidelity Invest-
and hold their investments, for the lack of confidence we need to walk in Susie’s ments, talks during an interview with The Associated Press, in
and they take fewer risks, among women may be high heels,” Murphy says. New York.
for example. the financial services indus- “Whether it’s financial plan- Associated Press
Researchers are gener- try itself. It’s one that was ning or saving for retire-
ally loathe to declare one created by and, for a long ment or retirement income, have longer life expec- getting their portfolios in
gender as absolutely bet- time, run for men. we pause and ask if this will tancies than men. In blunt better balance.
ter than the other in invest- So much so that Sallie meet Susie’s standards.” market terms, that makes That means they’ve got an
ing, and other studies have Krawcheck, a Wall Street Financial companies cer- them a bigger pool of po- appropriate mix of stocks
shown men doing slightly veteran who earlier ran tainly have an incentive to tential customers. and bonds for their age,
better than women over Merrill Lynch and Smith Bar- engage more with wom- Fidelity says it has already rather than being in all
other periods of time, but ney, cited that when she en. Divorce rates are rising seen improvements in re- cash at a young age or in
the figures underscore that co-founded Ellevest, an for older Americans - it’s cent years following its all stocks during retirement.
women at least shouldn’t online investment adviser roughly doubled since the increased outreach to fe- But there’s still more room
be too pessimistic about that says it helps customers 1990s for those aged 50 male customers, with more for improvement.q
their own abilities. “invest like a woman.” and above - which means
That would be a danger- The disparities run up and more women are becom-
ous thing if it discourages down Wall Street. Less than ing a sole financial decision
them from investing for re- 10 percent of all U.S. fund maker.
tirement or other goals. managers are women, And women continue to
“When women actually
take the step of investing,
they do a good job,” says
Kathleen Murphy, presi-
dent of personal investing
at Fidelity. “It doesn’t sur-
prise us, but I think it will sur-
prise them.
The issue is: How do we
get women to have the
confidence in themselves
to take care of something
that is fundamental to their
future well-being?”