Gemma Dale

And where women make an active choice, they tend to be more conservative than men.

Not more conservative as in they always go to the conservative option.

They're just less likely to make the more high risk option.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

When you look at it, so men are more likely to make the high risk option.

They're also far more likely to turn over their portfolios and change more frequently.

Yes, yes.

But the data says that tends to be a worse strategy over time.

So one of the reasons there is a perception that women are better investors on average, huge generalizations here, is because they tend not to be actively pursuing the best option all the time.

And because your data is always backward looking, right?

We always say past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Even if you're a momentum trader, fine, that's a different scenario.

But men are more likely to go, goodness, international shares performed really well last year.

I don't want to miss out on that.

I will go and increase my exposure to international shares.

And so there is this general trend you see in the data that because blokes are more likely to be

pursuing that winning option, they might, well, honestly, increase their turnover costs.

This is the biggest issue.

You increase your turnover costs and you increase the risk in your portfolio.

Yeah, so of those who make an active choice, they are more likely to be conservative than men.