New data from a leading trading platform has revealed that women made a considerably higher percentage of successful stock market trades compared to men in the first quarter of 2023.
The quarterly data report from CMC Markets has revealed fascinating insights into the trading activities of its users, including trading success based on gender and location, and which stocks were the most popular among the public.
The figures reveal that between 1 January and 31 March 2023, out of all users who ended up making a profit in the quarter, 70% of trades made by women were successful, compared to 62% of trades made by men.
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The data also reveals interesting regional differences, with traders in Wales recording the highest percentage of successful trades during the quarter. In total, people in Wales had 69% successful trades, compared to 67% for people in England, 66% for people in Northern Ireland, and 62% for people in Scotland.
The study also reveals the most popular shares on the CMC Platform, with Tesla Inc topping the list overall, and for both male and female traders. Apple Inc was the second most popular overall and for men, whereas women’s second most popular stock was Alibaba. In third place overall and for men is Amazon.com Inc, while for women it’s Apple Inc.
Overall, the top ten most popular stocks are broadly similar within each category – the only differences in male and female stock preferences come in their ninth and tenth most popular stocks. Men were more interested in Coinbase Global Inc and Credit Suisse, whereas women showed a preference for semiconductor company AMD, and electric car manufacturer NIO Inc.
Commenting on the figures, Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets, said:
What’s interesting here is that we’re not seeing a lot of variation across the demographic groups. It’s mostly the same ten companies in a slightly different order with Tesla number one throughout. It has always been this way – human beings are herd-like creatures.
The top ten is totally dominated by tech companies. Everyone thinks that the problems humans face will be solved by tech, and they want a part of that.
Over the last 15 years we’ve seen these tech stocks rise consistently, but the last year has seen the value of a lot of the big tech companies fall. I think that was an overdue correction. A problem with the herd mentality can be the creation of bubbles.
So many people can pile into the same stock that it becomes overvalued, and if everyone gets out at the same time that can cause problems. It’s like being on a small boat. If everyone moves to one side at once, it’ll capsize.”
The data also revealed the day during the quarter that most daily trades were made, with 13 March topping the list. Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) UK arm was sold to HSBC for £1 on that day as around 260,000 trades were made – double the daily average on the platform.
The second biggest day for daily trades was just a few days before on 10 March, when US regulators took control of SVB and shut it down. The third biggest day also came in the same month, when on 15 March worries of a bank run spread, and Credit Suisse announced it would borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs from the Swiss National Bank.
Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets commented: “At the end of every quarter there’s a little bit of a rebalance. People have a look back at how their portfolios have done, and this quarter also marks the end of the tax year, which also increases end of quarter flows. But even so this March was a particularly busy month.
“When things like this happen people start thinking back to 2008, and no one wants to be caught out again like that. For a lot of people, 15 years ago still feels fairly recent. But one of the things about the last 15 years is that markets have generally tended to go up. So there’s also a whole new generation of traders who have never seen a bear market. And they’ve been conditioned to buy the dip because central banks have always been there – there’s been low rates, plenty of liquidity. Inflation has been very benign for a long time.”
Now we have an inflation problem and central banks want to get on top of that. At the end of March they put rates up again and they will continue to do that until something else breaks. When you’ve been conditioned to low interest rates, it’s very difficult to shake out of that mindset. But as we go through the rest of this decade, we will find that there will be a slow adjustment to that new reality.