5 Reasons Why Women Are Hardly Any Better Investors Than Men
Posted By admin on June 21, 2011
As a man, I find myself asking myself often, “What is going on in this world?” Is it me or is there a concerted effort, or should I say a case of “trying too hard” to marginalize men in society. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for “women rights,” only when women will decide to seek harmony with men. However, “gender equality” should not come at the expense of the rights of men.
That is why it humors me to no end at this current attempt by the feminist propaganda machine to not only blame men for the current economic landscape, but to proclaim, by way of a certain articles (see below), that women are better investors than men. Much of what is written suggests that men need to “step aside” and let women take over the reins of the decisions involving the investment portfolio. Without rehashing much of what was written in these articles, here is a summary of the main points:
o Men overall traded stocks 45% more frequently than women.
o Single men traded stocks 67% more frequently than single women.
o Women overall earned annual risk-adjusted returns that were 1.0% greater than men.
o Single women earned annual risk-adjusted returns that were 1.4% greater than single men.
o The major problem men have is ego.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with the stats, providing there was no number “massaging,” I do disagree with the conclusion that women are better investors and that men are somehow gender inferior to women in this area; This where I call it a case of “creating something that wasn’t there.” Now that we live in a society that fosters in women false empowerment and discourages constructive criticism, it is time to start exposing the truth. I don’t mind pimping out my investment portfolio to my women friends if I saw a clear advantage but I am going to share my 5 reasons why women are hardly any better investors despite the numbers that appear to the contrary.
Reason One: Women have a safety net
When have you ever seen the majority of the homeless in America made up of women? When have you ever heard of the majority of divorce settlements falling in favor of men? When have you ever seen a continuous stream of women losing custody over their children to their fathers? When have you ever seen domestic disputes where the majority of time women were arrested? I could go on and on, but this will suffice.
I went into left field to say that women, despite their “come up,” have a “safety net” provided for them by society. Forget the propaganda of women “struggling to make it to the top.” Women are achieving such because they are in a place where they can’t fail (which by the way was created for them by men). Men can complain or women may not want to acknowledge it, but that is reality.
So if you knew you couldn’t fail, then how do you think your investment performance would fare? If there is little to no risk to your world collapsing, then you can afford to sit back and hold your investments longer and trade them as little. While men are accused of being over confident in their trading, the numbers also imply that women generally do well because of conditions that they did not create.
As for men, there is no comparison. A man can spend his life toiling to create a respectable fortune and a suitable life, make one miscalculation, whether its marrying the wrong woman, gets fired, or the business goes defunct, and he is likely to do a free fall to the bottom. Because of this, it is the reason why men have the tendency to take more risk. We are not wired to take risk, but rather we must take chances in the real face of uncertainty to create a probable certainty.
Reason Two: Women posses no inherent added value
It is a disservice to both men and women to suggest that women possess some “super power” that men are lacking. This argument is based on the results that women out performed men by a measly 1 to 1.3%. I say measly because if it were the case that there was some inherent added value within the biological and gender make up of women, then why does this power eke out only less than 5%. That’s like calling the “man of steel” Superman but he can only lift 5 more pounds than the strongest body builder. The argument sounds a bit stretched.
When you look at the annual performance number combined with the 45 and 67% over trading statistics, it speaks volumes not to any power women may have, but rather to the mistakes that men make in the financial markets. The numbers really suggest men need a better framework for trading successfully. If you look at the numbers again, all men have to do is ever so slightly improve their trading by just a little, and men easily dwarf the trading performance of women. It is as simple as that.
On another note about the so called “gender superiority” women supposedly have when it comes to investing in the financial markets, my question is, if this is true, then why aren’t more women in droves coming in to take advantage of their “inborn super powers?” Women have for years taken on jobs and careers that were nontraditional and “worked hard to get to the top” of their professions, why wouldn’t they do something that supposedly comes “naturally” for them? As the rapper Jay-Z would say, “One of us ain’t playin’ right, but I’ll let you tell it.”
Furthermore, the collective of articles points out the reason why women make better investors is due to them having higher emotional intelligence than men. On the surface this is true because women are systemically tied to their emotions, so it obviously make sense. The more you use something the more intelligent you become in that area. This is so apparent but I have to ask, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? If you look in the annals of giants in the investing or trading arena, how come you never hear any of these great men mentioning that they relied on their emotions to invest successfully? That is like me asking women, if they are so attuned to their emotions or their intuition, how come many of them fail to use their innate power to “feel” the difference between a good man and a loser. This brings me to the next reason.
Reason Three: Women have no long-term perspective
Last time I check, the divorce rate hovered around 50-70%. What is more interesting is that 60-70% of those divorces are initiated by women. Maybe I am missing something here but can anybody explain to me how I am supposed to believe they can pick and hold the right stocks for the long term, but lack discernment in their choice of men and lack the long-term perspective to stick with their relationships. I am just saying…
Reason Four: Women are masters of pride
Another argument for the idea that men need to “sit down” and let women take over is that men have too much ego. On this point, I definitely agree with this one. Men tend to put a little too much stock in what little they know, especially when it comes to investment selection. I know because I use to carry on with this tone managing my portfolio to my demise. But to suggest that men are “wired” this way or that women are not in possession of any flaw is ludicrous.
What women may lack in ego, they more than make up in pride. Here is a quick exercise. Count on your hands the number of times you ever heard a woman admit to a mistake or admitted that she was wrong? If you get the range of numbers I get then you clearly see that although a man will overcompensate on his expertise, women will avoid humiliation to the point of denial rather than admit that they made an error in their investment decisions. So it equals out. Are you finding it hard to believe that women are somehow “getting over” on men by using their “superior strength” in the financial markets?
Reason Five: Women don’t take rejection to well
You ever wonder why in spite of the changes in society with women moving up in the world, most women still hold (when it suits them) these beliefs that men are still supposed to pay for dinner, pursue them, and whatever else works for them in their favor. I quickly assess that the real reason is that women use this as a way of keeping power to overcompensate for their fear of rejection. After all, I just mentioned that women are the masters of pride. I will share an incident with you that will help bring home this point.
I remember years ago, I was at this bar with a couple of my partners. We were talking about whatever when we noticed that this particular woman sitting at the bar whispering amongst her girlfriends while looking in the direction of one of my friends. Eventually, she gets up and starts heading over in our direction and starts to have a conversation with him. Instead of us butting in, we proceeded to eat at our food while “ear hustling.”
Apparently, she was trying to engage him in a conversation about whether he had a girlfriend and what not. What made me start snickering was that his nonverbal language hinted to his disinterest. While she was making every attempt to close the deal, he finally told her that he was neither interested nor looking for a relationship at this time, since he just got out of relationship. Once she got the picture, she went back to the bar.
But then she started crying. I mean literally crying with her head down on the bar. It was so bad that her girls gathered around to console her. For obvious reasons, we and the few men who were privileged to see this were laughing hysterically. It was shocking enough that we witnessed the very few times a woman actually approaching a man, but to see a woman get rejected was kind of funny in a weird kind of way. Now she knows what men go through every day.
I bring up this story to make this point: Most women never put themselves in positions of great risk or danger. Consequently, when they encounter these situations, they are not trained to deal with them. So how all of sudden they are now better investors than men when the essence of the financial markets is risk, and I now need to turn over my investment decisions over to them. Miss me with this.
As I said earlier, most men under perform in the financial markets due to a lack of understanding or not having an optimal mindset for the markets. It really has nothing to do with gender as much as it has to do with social engineering. The secret to improving performance in the financial markets is to understand that what goes on in the markets is a microcosm of what goes on in society. Deflect the way society tries to influence you as a man, and you will begin to improve your performance in the markets.
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