Flocking to stocks: Young women turning to shares to create wealth

The Australian sharemarket is witnessing a shakeup, with new data from nabtrade suggesting men might not dominate share ownership in Australia in the future thanks to unprecedented numbers of young women turning to shares to create wealth.

According to nabtrade, Gen Z females now hold over 20 per cent more assets than their male counterparts but are trading them far less frequently, despite holding larger portfolios than their male counterparts.

nabtrade Director of SMSF and Investor Behaviour, Gemma Dale said it is exciting to see more women, particularly young women, investing in share markets to help secure their financial future.

“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,” Ms Dale said.

Individual shareholdings differed between the genders, with women favouring staples such as Coles and Woolworths, as well as retailers including Harvey Norman. Women were also more likely to hold Bubs Australia and A2 Milk than their male counterparts.

Ms Dale said young women are buying shares they know and investing for the long term, which indicates they are highly engaged and interested.

“Our data showed 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”, Ms Dale said.

“While female investors showed a strong preference for ethical ETFs and were also much less likely to hold gambling and energy stocks than men, they were equally likely to hold one of the big miners.”

While Gen Z women hold larger portfolios than their male counterparts, and Gen Y portfolios are of similar size between the sexes, female Baby Boomers hold just 56 per cent of the portfolio size of men in the same age group. Gen X women hold portfolios nearly 78 per cent the size of a man’s in the same age group.

“Global research indicates the female tendency to trade less frequently can often lead to better portfolio outcomes, in part due to lower transaction costs, but trading in larger sizes demonstrates higher conviction in their investment decisions,” Ms Dale said.