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Gen Z women shaking up the sharemarket scene

  • October 08 2019
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Invest

Gen Z women shaking up the sharemarket scene

By Grace Ormsby
October 08 2019

Gen Z females hold over 20 per cent more in stock market assets than their male counterparts, hinting that men might not dominate Australia’s sharemarkets for much longer. 

Gen Z women shaking up the sharemarket scene

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  • October 08 2019
  • Share

Gen Z females hold over 20 per cent more in stock market assets than their male counterparts, hinting that men might not dominate Australia’s sharemarkets for much longer. 

Gen Z women shaking up the sharemarket scene

According to nabtrade, unprecedented numbers of young women are turning to shares to create wealth, with females trading far less frequently and holding much larger portfolios than men in the corresponding age group. 

Nabtrade’s director of SMSF and investor behaviour, Gemma Dale, commented that it’s exciting to see more women, especially young women, investing in sharemarkets to help secure their financial future. 

According to Ms Dale, “when it comes to building wealth, young women are starting early and showing great confidence in their stock picking, putting them in good stead to reduce wealth inequality between the sexes over time”.

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nestegg recently reported that young Australian women are at serious risk of never achieving true financial independence because they prioritise physical health over their financial health, but that survey did look only to Millennial habits.

Gen Z women shaking up the sharemarket scene

Nabtrade’s data revealed individual shareholdings also differ between the genders, with women favouring giants Coles and Woolworths as well as retailers including Harvey Norman. 

Women are also more likely to hold Bubs Australia and A2 Milk than their male counterparts, it was reported. 

From Ms Dale’s perspective, young women are buying shares they know and investing for the long term, which indicates they are “highly engaged and interested”. 

She said nabtrade showed that “women tend to stay with stocks and sectors that are familiar to them, meaning they are more likely to hold bank shares and less likely to invest in direct international shares than men across all age groups”. 

Female investors also showed a strong preference for ethical ETFs and are much less likely to hold gambling and energy stocks than men, according to the director, but at the same time, they were “equally likely to hold one of the big miners”. 

Interestingly, Gen Z women were the only age group surveyed to hold larger portfolios than their male counterparts. 

Gen Y portfolios were reported as being of a similar size between the sexes, while Baby Boomer women hold just 56 per cent of the portfolio size of Baby Boomer men. 

For Gen X, women hold portfolios that are nearly 78 per cent of the size of a similarly aged man. 

Global research indicates that the female tendency to trade less frequently can often lead to better portfolio outcomes, Ms Dale outlined, which is in part due to lower transaction costs.

“But, trading in larger sizes demonstrates higher conviction in their investment decisions,” she concluded. 

 

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About the author

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Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

About the author

author image
Grace Ormsby

Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

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