#Women #represent #recurring #investors #Portugal
This study also highlights three main barriers to investment by women: lack of capital, fear of financial loss and lack of financial knowledge.
According to an analysis by XTB in Portugal, only 43% of the population claim to be recurring investors and, within this population, less than half (40%) are women.
This is one of the conclusions of the most recent survey “Saving and Investment Habits of the Portuguese” carried out by Netsonda.
The study indicates that, within the universe of women who invest on a recurring basis, 80% only invest up to 5,000 euros per year. A higher percentage than that found when analyzing the same metric in the universe of men who invest recurrently.
This study also points out that the main barriers to investment by women are lack of capital (34%), fear of financial loss (33%) and lack of financial knowledge (26%).
Still, and despite this data, the number of women using the XTB platform to manage their investment portfolios in Portugal has increased over the last three years, going from 6.9% of the platform’s total users in 2021 to 12.3% in 2023, which represents an increase of more than 78% in three years, reveals the broker.
This data, coming from XTB’s internal analyses, also highlights that, last year, 13.8% of new investors were women, reflecting an increase of 3.1% over the period analyzed.
XTB details that, in terms of the shares most traded by women last year, there is a significant preference for Portuguese listed companies. In the top 3, the shares of Banco Comercial Português (BCP) stand out, followed by EDP Renováveis and EDP Energias de Portugal.
“When it comes to the CFDs and ETFs most traded by women, we observe a preference for global assets and technology sectors. The Nasdaq (US100), the EURUSD in the foreign exchange market (Forex) and investments in oil, represented by OILWTI, lead the choices in CFDs”, says the broker.
“As for ETFs, the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF, iShares S&P 500 Information Technology Sector UCITS and iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF are the favorites,” adds XTB.
Women invest less but save more
In terms of savings, 47% of Portuguese people who save are women, a figure higher than the percentage of women who currently invest.
There is a greater percentage of women (51.4%) within the universe of respondents saving up to 100 euros per month, while there is a greater number of men (54.9%) who manage to save between 100 and 500 euros.
One in three women considers they have a low level of financial literacy, in contrast to men, where one in four considers they have a low level of financial literacy.
58% of women consider themselves to have an average level of financial literacy, a figure lower than that of men, where 64% make the same assessment.
On the other hand, 6% of women consider themselves to have a high level of financial literacy, slightly below men (7%).
Ariana Nunes, a personal finance specialist invited to analyze the data, says that “it can be seen that we have a paradigm shift, particularly with women ceasing to be conservative”.
“Now they are starting to have more access to information and technology. However, despite the growth in the number of women investing, it is still a man’s world. There is still a need to increase financial literacy in Portugal”, argues Ariana Nunes.
“The Portuguese are no longer so conservative, but there is still a long way to go and the secret is to guarantee more knowledge for everyone”, he concludes.
Eduardo Silva, General Director of XTB Portugal, also considers that “this is a topic that increasingly deserves special attention”.
“It is necessary to create and implement solutions that promote everyone’s financial literacy and that guarantee that both women and men have the same savings and investment capacity”, argues the head of XTB in Portugal.
