They are efficient, reasonable and capable of mastering their emotions. When investing on financial markets, women tend to make better decisions than men, they more often gain and less often lose, and are much better at handling possible losses. A perfect trader? A woman, of course.
Feminine traits made Warren Buffett successful, claims the American guru of women’s business world, LouAnn Lofton, author of the book Warren Buffett Invests Like A Girl. Buffett himself does not deny it.
Women trading on financial markets have their leaders who invested themselves, became successful and wrote books about it. In the US, it is Kim Kiyosaki, author of the 2006 book Rich Woman; in Japan, it is Mayumi Torii, founder of FX Beauties Club. The pupils have either outperformed their masters or developed their ideas in their own way, as it was the case with a well-known trader Carolyn Boroden, pen named Fibonacci Queen, who adjusted the methodology of the legendary Robert Miner to her own trading concept.
There are much fewer female traders than male traders on the market. This is a banality, of course. However, when we look closer at the reasons for such situation, we come to truly interesting conclusions. “First of all, women are definitely less impulsive or emotional when it comes to trading. I often hear from men, »I tried it, I decided I liked it and I got involved«. Women are usually motivated by other things: sometimes they seek a new profession, sometimes they want to invest their financial surplus themselves, and almost always such decisions are well-weighted,” explains Maciej Goliński, a trader and a coach offering training to Saxo Bank traders. Consequently, there are much fewer women on the market who enter it at random. This is their advantage over men from the very beginning. “Another aspect is your expectations. Men, in particular young men, have often unreasonable expectations with regard to their financial gains. I get frequent phone calls from men asking, »How much could I gain on the stock exchange per week?«. No woman has ever asked me that question,” says Goliński.
Women are ready to work hard and long. They do not expect any miracles. They have also a different approach to risk. Women tend to be much more cautious. “In fact, the only situation where women overvalue the risk occurs when they miscalculate the volume of the opened position. This kind of mistake is definitely less frequent for men,” claims Goliński.
According to the psychologist Marta Wróbel-Rakowska, when making investment decisions, men tend to rely more on guesswork and intuition than women. Beginner female traders usually put more energy to obtaining the necessary knowledge and they broaden it in a more systematic manner. It also takes more time for them to call themselves “professional traders”. Female traders more easily than men can suppress the urge to win back their losses. “It seems that the advantage of women is their ability, partly natural and partly related to their upbringing, to understand themselves and their emotions. When you have to make fast trading decisions, apart from reason, also our beliefs and emotions play a factor; your awareness of them is your strength,” says Marta Wróbel-Rakowska.
According to the opinions of psychologists, managers and traders investing through Saxo Bank in Central and Eastern Europe, women make much better traders than men and very often gain more than men. The values, of course, are not absolute, as there are still more men than women on the market, but the percentage of women reporting gains compared to men is impressive. Another conclusion from our questionnaire is that women tend to trade in a more organised manner than men. They follow their plan in a consistent way and devote only as much time to it as it is really necessary. There are practically no situations where women spend hours in front of the screen.
Opinions:
I like futures
Sylwia Dobosz, Poland
For many years I have worked for large corporations outside Poland. Last year, in March, I decided to return to Poland and to check whether I could be a full-time trader. (Until then, trading had been my part-time hobby.) I was also curious whether trading would meet my expectations. Now I know that this kind of activity is completely different than any other. My typical day is divided into two parts: the professional one, i.e. market analysis, and the personal development one. Trading activity takes up to 1.5 hour on a daily basis.
My experience with financial markets started ten years ago, when I invested my money in mutual funds for the first time. Two years later, I decided I wanted to be the only manager of my money. This was when I started investing in stocks and futures on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. After a while, I found out that I enjoyed trading in futures. I also like trading on forex. However, futures remain my favourite instruments.
Nevertheless, in a fast-changing environment, I see the need to broaden my knowledge of other instruments, which is why I participate in the training offered by Saxo Bank. I also appreciate the technological solutions offered by its platform. Personally, I prefer trading via desktop, but I use my tablet and smartphone to watch the prices or open transactions.
I would recommend to all those who want to start their adventure with trading on financial markets to cooperate with a professional trader. Prepare yourselves for your first online transaction. Good preparation will save your time, money and emotions that are inherent to this job. According to my observations, emotions have the greatest impact on trading – their awareness and management improve the quality of my investments.
Perfection: new technologies
Anna Kocjan, Poland
I have been trading for about two years now, so I could hardly call myself an experienced trader. I am trying to broaden my knowledge about the markets and the instruments, as well as to be up-to-date with global news, which makes this work practically never-ending. I am trying to use all available instruments depending on my needs and on the current situation. The instruments available on the Saxo platform actually allow for a very flexible construction of your investment strategies. New technologies are very helpful. With them, a trader may work almost 365/7/24. Without even leaving your home or office you can trade in a whole spectrum of assets listed on various markets worldwide. I can only imagine how different my work would have been only several years ago, when each transaction required contacting your broker and placing orders on paper.
It is difficult to form universal advice when it comes to trading. Certainly, you should not be conceited or think that you are always right. You should pay particular attention to leverage and adjust it to your own financial potential, as well as your approach to risk. When it comes to strengths, I try to improve my patience and ability to learn both from successes and from mistakes.
Forget your portfolio from time to time
Sophia Kassidova, Bulgaria
I am an established financial professional, ex-vice minister of economy of Bulgaria and ex-vice president of Black Sea Trade and Development Bank – BSTDB. I have been trading with stocks and bonds for the last 20 years but my trading account with Saxo Bank is since mid-2014. I mostly invest in ETFs and specific stocks. For me the recent volatility in the markets is a very good opportunity to buy good companies at lower prices, and I have been doing exactly that in the past weeks. I am very attached to using mobile devices and appliances “on the go”. In modern day, immediate access to mobility is a convenient facility.
I am fully aware that I not full-time investment professional and this has, at least, 2 relevant practical implications: firstly, people like me cannot afford the luxury of spending hours of researching potential investments and reading long analysts’ reports, and even less so, flying around the world to meet companies CFOs (which I think is a waste of clients’ money); secondly, and more importantly, non-professional investors like me do not have full access to all the relevant info, and thus, by definition, would be always one step behind main street managers. That is why it is important to really look for long-term investments so one can have a might night sleep, enjoy the luxury sometimes to forget about its portfolio, and yet, still enjoy positive return when we look at it later with a hindsight.
5 rules of investing from a female trader:
- Trade only with the money that you are not afraid to lose.
- Never try to win your money back. Think it over and start again.
- Study psychology – you need to know what you can do, and what you cannot. Fight your fear and fight the loss of it. There are a lot of aspects worth taking in consideration. Psychological condition always affects your trading.
- Try finding balance – trade when it is favourable, and take a rest, when you stumble upon some obstacles. Not vice versa.
- Let yourself have some rest. People always tend to forget about that in trading. Just close your positions and take some rest.