Junaid Raza Syed (Senior Editor/Department Manager FS)
When it comes to budgeting and saving money, it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, because either way, it can be very difficult. It usually comes down to what kind of lifestyle are you used to living in.
Experts believe that if you grew up always wishing to have enough money to buy things you want, then you’ll most likely spend more since it’s not something you have experienced.
Women are known to spend more than men, since a huge percentage of women go shop for the things that catch their eyes even if they’re not even supposed to get it. However, new studies show that women are better when it comes to investing compared to men, here’s why.
Women and Investments
Men may be dominating Wall Street for years now, but it doesn’t mean that women are not good when it comes to investing. They may not be very big on stocks compared to men, but experts have discovered that women make wiser investments by producing more returns.
According to FidelityInvestments, coming from 8 million client accounts, they have found that women actually outperform men and it may not be a huge difference, it becomes significant. Another study was done by Warwick Business School researchers and they have discovered that men tend to give in more info trends that they lose focus which leads to taking too much risk.
They studied the habits of both men and women when it comes to trade shares and they have discovered how the annual return by men was above 0.14 percent, whereas women have a completely different result. Women who invested gained 1.94 percent and this makes such a massive difference in the long run.
The study also managed to figure out what exactly are the men doing wrong and what did women do to make it right. It turns out that the biggest difference would be the type of shares that each gender decides to buy.
Men tend to get enthusiastic about purchasing potential massive winnings as if it is a lottery, so they get highly speculative shares that are inexpensive. Men also seem to hold on to some shares that they have bought but dived, since they hope that it will somehow recover, women, on the other hand, let go of these dived shares since they don’t see the significance any longer.
Getting More But Investing Less
Despite facing the investment race against men, women are just not into investing as much as men even if studies have shown that they are better at it. According to Wealthsimple, women invest 40 percent less than men, even if they will be given enough opportunity to do more.
In a recent survey, 35 percent of men will invest a thousand dollar and women are mostly undecided. This could be a problem according to some experts, that is because the gender pay gap tends to leave women earning 80 percent of what a man earns, so technically they will have to save way more from their salary so that they could achieve the parity between themselves and men on the retirement savings.
Wealthsimple co-founder Mike Katchen believed that this is something that must be paid attention to, women need to invest more so that the pay gap will meow up over time. If they do, they will end up spending less than they need to.
Katchen said that it has been known for centuries now that women are just not into Investments as men. Although things have changed, it is still not as big since women would rather earn money and then simply spend or save it, rather than grow it and have some more.
Experts believe that a woman’s mind can easily be content on what they have, so once they saved then they will rather spend it than to take the risk of losing it in case it doesn’t grow. They are better in making financial decisions since they are makers in their household.
Men, on the other hand, are earners so what they do back in the day is to earn money while the women make their houses a home. Despite the difference, everyone can invest as long as they know what they are getting into.