Female traders ... and why so few of us

So, you came here with an extraordinary claim, and when pressed for evidence, you provide one link to a piece with no actual data that reads like something you’d find at jezebel or everydayfeminism, and another that compared how a few hundred female interns at one firm lost less money and were better at following rules than their male counterparts. And we are supposed to take your claim seriously?

Furthermore, imagine the howling and the squealing if a man went to some female-dominated space and said, “Sorry ladies, suck it up, men are just plain better at this thing you all do.” Maybe the evidence is there, maybe not, but that’s not the kind of attitude that is going to encourage meaningful engagement.

Now with that out of the way, I have a very simple answer: as freedom increases for both sexes in a society – as more options previously closed to either sex become available – the sexes self-select into their gender-specific professions anyway, despite all the propaganda and effort to push women into male-dominated spaces (at least the high-paying non-hazardous ones). A light-hearted look at this can be seen here: (I can not post links, but look for “The Gender Equality Paradox - Documentary NRK - 2011” on YouTube.)

It may well be true that women as an aggregate are better at trading than men. That would not be surprising, however, because women in general tend to sit in the middle (or just right of middle, at least in terms of intelligence) of the bell curve, whereas men occupy the entire curve, including the very best and the very worst. (Look for “Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn” at the dailymail)

Perhaps the higher average intelligence combined with higher levels of diligence do give women an edge in trading. However, the best of the best – genius men who learn diligence – and the worst of the worst are likely going to be men.

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Because females can’t stand being wrong… So when they lose, they argue with the market but just realize they’ll wrong again and can’t take it, so they quit.

Come on we know that the women are generated by their emotions and the successful traders are emotionless, but i really respect the women in the game my mentor is a woman tho.

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Actually you apparently can’t count. I posted a link to THREE pieces, TWO OF WHICH had actual data in them.

The rest of your post is just yammering because you totally ignored the facts. I posted 3 links, not 1. Two of the links contained data.

But hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of your opinion.

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Very right , they are emotionally unstable and not good traders in general , that’s why we see very few women in trading.

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Well at least this one is lol

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:grin::fork_and_knife:

I just wanted to clarify that my participation in this thread was to simply share my ideas as to why more females don’t trade or don’t know about trading.
Nothing to do with men or women and who is better or worse.
I was taught by my husband. And I will teach my daughter.
I guess that makes us even.

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Ah, yes, you did post three links. I addressed two of them, however, if you read my post again. I missed the third one since it didn’t have a preview. However, that third one one reads just like the first, and like the first, contains no data, so it can be addressed in the same manner.

So in your mind, because I ignored one your “facts”, you can ignore mine? Does my oversight somehow invalidate the resources I linked to? I understand if you don’t like my answer, and I understand if you disagree with it and think the facts I provided don’t support my answer, but what I posted was indeed an answer and not an opinion.

Need I remind you that you came here with an extraordinary claim, and among the “DOZENS” of resources that allegedly support your claim, you chose possibly the three weakest resources imaginable. I would expect that out of the “DOZENS” of resources available that unequivocally prove that women are better traders than men, that you would have picked a longitudinal study involving men and women from many countries and levels of experience and compared performance between the two aggregate groups, but no, you didn’t do that, did you? Because you don’t have it.

You’re simply doing what everyone in the history of mankind has done when they can’t back up their claim with real evidence: changing the subject and/or resorting to base assertion.

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FF, cannot figure yet how to quote your “As I am one myself now” post - but given time I will.

I’m not into this female vs male thing, I do absolutely recognize the phenomenon, a couple of years ago my son in law and myself were invited to Wall St by two very respectable traders, had we been female then the invite would have been inappropriate.

What is thought provoking is your mentioning of the other little business - my own choice is always the soul, the rest will take care of itself :slight_smile:

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Thank you Peter. You’re a gentleman :slight_smile:

“New figures show women make better traders than men on every metric imaginable”

There’s a chart in there showing the total P&L difference between men and women, The difference in the number of forbidden actions taken between men and women, A chart on the average number of correct short trades between men and women.

Want more?


"Openfolio found that women outperform men by .2%"

“The big investment firm Fidelity says that female investors outperformed males last year by 0.3%. In fact, Fidelity found that females outdid men in the past decade.”

In short, you were wrong when you started yammering and you’re wrong now.

I already addressed the first link, but I suppose if you think anyone who provides an answer you don’t like is just yammering, then I suppose I must repeat myself. A single firm showed that this one time a few hundred female interns lost less money and better followed the rules than a few hundred male interns. I’m sorry, but that’s just anecdote. (Plus, one must wonder how the men who actually did follow the rules fared in comparison, but alas, it doesn’t say, because they were more interested in pushing a narrative than including all the actual raw data for one to analyze oneself.)

As for the second, setting aside that 0.2% may not be significant depending on the sample size – I guess we just take them at their word, huh – that’s investing. Not trading. (Edit: Also, that is not “MUCH” better as you claimed in your OP.) And there is the narrative again: “Financial Feminism”.

It may be true, it may not be. I don’t think anyone here would be bothered either way (except perhaps you). We are all just single data points, after all, perfectly capable of deviating from the mean in our class. Maybe the fine women over at the Girls Gone Forex group on Facebook would be more receptive?

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Bro, I admire your efforts here but a Mark Twain once said

Don’t argue with stupid people. They will only drag you down to their level then beat you up with experience

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“a single firm showed”

You almost accidentally got a fact right. it was ONE firm, Fidelity, only one of the largest trading houses on the planet and their results were backed up by the other trading firms (though they refused to give exact stats only said that it seemed “about right” in interviews following).

The problem is that the results were confirmed by another “firm” which is a trading app, only one of the most globally used trading mobile trading apps with trillions of dollars in processed trades and they came up with numbers that were very similar to Fidelity’s. So not exactly “one firm” you can’t even accidentally get your facts straight.

And yes, you’re right, individually we can (and do) deviate from “norms” … but that wasn’t the question I posed in the OP now was it. The question I posed is that given that women are IN GENERAL better traders than men, why aren’t there more female traders.

The question had nothing to do with a specific individual. Sheesh.

I answered your question, and you ignored it. I explained why every single one of your resources was garbage, and you consistently misrepresented my responses. You are either being deliberately obtuse or you are so utterly convinced of your conclusion ahead of time that you are literally blind to any words that contradict it. You are fooling nobody but yourself; anyone else reading this thread is witness to your poor reading comprehension and/or dishonesty.

I have even given you a chance to save yourself a smidgen of embarrassment by hinting that all you have to say is that you simply don’t think the facts I posted regarding intelligence and profession preference between the sexes (that “yammering” you willfully ignore because you don’t like reality) explains why there are so few female traders. I suppose another explanation is they see someone like you and think that’s not someone they want to be. Good day, madam.

Yes _bob, though I like to think if Mark Twain had the Internet, he would have rethought his position. :wink:

[quote=“NorseBoric, post:42, topic:106247, full:true”]
I answered your question, and you ignored it.[/quote]

The answer you provided was so horrible that I was hoping to give you a chance to reconsider an inane answer.

Your explanations sucked and made no sense. The data, not by a single firm because every other firm has confirmed the results, says that women are better traders (admittedly at only .2% to .3% it’s only marginally better … but still better)

lol … what’s dishonest is insisting there’s no data supporting the fact that women are better traders when in fact it is all but considered a GIVEN on wall street that women will be better traders.

[quote]
I have even given you a chance to save yourself a smidgen of embarrassment[/quote]

Start worrying a little more about saving yourself embarrassment. Facts are facts, the data says what it says, I’m sorry you don’t like the facts, I’m sorry you don’t like the obvious conclusions of the data.

That doesn’t change the truth. Women are in general better traders than men.

And I suppose some women could look at the overly mysoginistic male morons in this field and decide they don’t want to have to deal with your kind of nonsense. That might be a good reason for so few female traders as well.

Good day to you as well sir.

This pretty much sums it up for me. Home-based female trader right here.

I’ve been at this game for so long and I do check out forums quite often, but I hardly participate in them mostly because of the misogynistic vibe. And I’ve previously worked in a prop firm where this kind of “culture” is magnified by a hundredfold.

I would venture to say that there are more female traders than it appears these days (maybe close to an even split?) likely in part to the traits that give us a bit of an edge and the convenience of home-based trading. It’s just that men are so much noisier about it.

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Hey ya, I am a female (beginner) trader. I don’t focus too much on gender in all aspects on life, but yes it’s obvious there are way more male traders than female. I have no idea if that means I’ll have more of an edge, time will tell. Fingers crossed :grinning: