Financially the fairer sex

Women investors consistently outperform their male colleagues, new research has found.

Leading financial website and information provider DigitalLook.com has released data that shows female investors have beaten both their male counterparts and the average rise in the FTSE All Share Index.

DigitalLook reviewed the performance of more than 100,000 portfolios over the last 12 months and discovered that the average rise of a portfolio managed by a woman was over 17 per cent.

This was four per cent higher than the market rise of 13 per cent and a massive six per cent higher than the performance of portfolios managed by men.

"Women really are the better sex when it comes to share investing. While men tend to take more risks with their hard earned savings, women take a more balanced and considered view and time again it pays dividends," commented Andy Yates, director at DigitalLook.

The financial information provider found that over the last six months women have continued to build balanced portfolios, favouring leisure, food and drinks, and utility companies.

At the same time male investors have continued to back stock market 'fads' including mining and oil and gas stocks. While these stocks produced strong initial returns, it seems male investors held on too long and suffered following sharp falls in recent months.

And the success of female investors is no flash in the pan, with women consistently presiding over rising portfolios - even in the dire market conditions of 2001 when the survey was first undertaken.

Merryn Somerset-Webb, editor of Money Week, concluded: "Successful investing isn't about being particularly clever. In fact it is all about temperament, and it appears that very often women have a better temperament for it than men."

However, while women consistently outperform men on the markets, recent savings data shows that they are less likely to invest and more likely to let men take control of financial decisions.

Lloyds TSB found earlier this year that by the time people reached retirement men had an average savings account worth over £2,000 more than the average woman's.

In the over-65s category women had an average savings balance of £4,889 while men had more than £7,250 put away.

Additionally, more than two thirds of the women who were not responsible for all their financial decisions said they knew as much as their partner on financial matters, but were happy for their other half to make the final decision on their behalf, GMAC-RFC has reported.

One in five of these said they did not want to get involved in finances.

Anna Bennett, marketing manager at GMAC-RFC, commented: "The fact the majority of women questioned would be quite happy for their partner to take control of financial decisions could mean that if it was left to their partner, it simply wouldn't get done."

More positively for the nation's wealth one woman in three said she had the final decision when choosing savings, one in five said she decided which pension to invest in, and 20 per cent said she made investment decisions.