City Index are one of the most popular brokers in the UK, so I was very interested to read some facts about their customer base that they published earlier this year.
One of the most significant findings concerned the number of women who enjoy trading the markets because according to City Index, there are more and more women who are choosing to open live trading accounts.
The world of forex trading, and indeed trading in general, has always been a male-dominated profession, but it would appear that an increasing number of women are realising that this is a very viable way of making some extra money.
Here is an infographic that reveals some of the most important findings:
As you can see, 46% more women opened new accounts between January and March 2015 compared to the same period this year, which is a dramatic increase.
Furthermore, it would seem that most of these women are professional women rather than stay-at-home moms, for example, because the customer base includes accountants, administrators, business owners, managers / senior managers, secretaries and directors (which is the most popular profession).
The average age of these female traders is 43, which backs up the idea that these are relatively wealthy professionals who have a reasonable amount of disposable income to trade the markets.
However it was interesting to read that the youngest trader was just 19, whilst their oldest female customer was 83 years old, which I find incredible because although I have been trading for most of my adult life, I can’t imagine that I will still be trading stocks and currencies well into my 80s.
With regards to which markets they trade, 80% are trading the stock market indices, whilst 10% trade forex, 7% trade stocks, 2% trade commodities and 1% trade commodities, which I find quite surprising.
I would have thought that most of these female traders would be trading stocks or currencies because this is how most people get started, but it would appear that they prefer to trade the FTSE 100 and the Dow Jones instead, which can be quite a challenge for the inexperienced trader.
Anyway the main point that I wanted to get across in this article is that an increasing number of women are choosing to trade the financial markets. Of course they are still in a minority because just 8% of the trades were placed by women during this period, according to this infographic, but it is clear that they are a growing force.