Women Investors: Making Your Feminine Mystique Take the Stock Market by Storm

Your gender doesn't matter: Take the Stock Market by Storm, starting today!
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Whether you agree with the well-worn phrase of women being from Venus and men from Mars, there are certain characteristics and personality traits that define your femininity, and these can mean you could make a big success of trading stocks.

No reason to be fearful

It is a scenario that has dumbfounded the asset management industry for many years, but the facts are that women are generally less likely to invest in the stock market than men.

There really is no plausible reason for this reticence these days as many women are just as independent, financially secure, and just as well-informed as their male counterparts, yet the stock market is still predominantly an environment that is statistically more likely to see male investors speculating with their cash than females.

The very fact that financial markets are viewed as an arena that is dominated by males, and might not be viewed as that welcoming by women, might have something to do with the hesitation displayed by a number of women, but there is no reason to fearful or dissuaded by these perceived negative factors.

Checking the Facebook price for example, and other stocks you might have invested in, might prove a pleasurable experience if you have worked out a way of investing that proves to be a path to regular profits.

Confident and competent

You may well be amongst many of the women who already make a major contribution towards the running and distribution of the family finances, so you are therefore already going to be highly competent and confident when it comes to handling many aspects of finance.

Despite these obvious qualities and qualifications when it comes to handling money efficiently, you can probably find a decent percentage of women in this position, who have never actually invested personally in any stocks or funds.

It may be that you have some deeply ingrained attitudes towards savings and the need to keep your cash safe and relatively accessible, that were instilled in you from your own parents, which probably explains to a certain extent, why women account for a more balanced percentage of savings accounts, when looking at the numbers from a gender perspective.

Rewards await you

This natural caution might be understandable and of course, perfectly acceptable, but there are numerous studies that highlight the fact that female investors tend to fare better than men.

You are most definitely in a position where you are able to make sensible and logical investment decisions regarding investing in the stock market, and when you consider the potential rewards that await you, it makes sense to consider the idea of putting your money to work in this way.

Fulfilling your investment potential

If you have managed to make your way in life; have a career and are on the property ladder, this is the typical profile of a professional woman, and the perfect opportunity to lay down the foundations for a more secure financial future.

It seems that the mindset of a number of women in this position is to prioritize paying off their mortgage as quickly as possible over any other financial considerations.

This is a perfectly acceptable and admirable goal to pursue of course, but it is also worth considering that with interest rates so low and likely to remain so for some time to come, you might just be wasting a decade or so of investment potentialĀ if you shun the stock market.

If you look at it the other way. Putting your spare cash into stocks that you have researched and believe will offer you a decent return in terms of growth over a period of time, might just allow you to accumulate a sum that could be used to pay off that mortgage, quicker than saving cash sums or paying bits off the mortgage as you go.

There is also the possibility that if the research proves to be correct and you turn out to be more efficient and successful as a woman investor, you could end up with a tidy sum from your stock market investments, that give you far more options than simply paying off the mortgage would bring.

With interest rates at such low levels, cash is going to struggle to keep pace with inflation, so use your female intuition and qualities to put it to the men and show them what stock market investing should really look like.

Edward Briggs enjoys sharing his knowledge on penny stock trading and has recently convinced his wife and sister to give it a go despite them initially reluctance. He writes about penny stock trading for beginners, his articles appearing on personal finance blogs as well as more niche trading sites.