Women claiming a stronger presence in investment clubs

Investing used to be dominated by men, but no longer. One telling sign: Women now make up 68 percent of the membership of the National Association of Investors Corp., which represents 733,000 individual and investment club members.

There's also evidence women make better investors than men, according to data compiled by the NAIC, based in Madison Heights, Mich.

In the mid-1980s, about 70 percent of the NAIC's members were men. What's changed? "The trend has closely followed the number of women who entered the work force," explained Jonathan Strong, the NAIC's manager of membership development. "And those women are searching for ways to learn about investing and how to take charge of their financial future." That can be daunting, if you're on your own. So many have banded together in investment clubs, pooling their money to buy stocks under the NAIC's guidelines. Women-only clubs now comprise 50 percent of the NAIC's 37,401 investment clubs nationwide. Men-only clubs make up only 10 percent. Mixed-gender clubs also are growing in popularity, accounting for 40 percent of the total. "There's a clear increase in the popularity of husband-wife clubs (spouse group clubs) and clubs that are formed from individuals through work," Strong said. Spurring the latter is the fact many employers are asking workers to decide where to invest their funds for retirement though 401(k) plans, for example. "So people want to learn about investing and how to manage their money," Strong said. Women-only clubs tend to outperform men-only and mixed-gender clubs, according to NAIC data. During 1997-98, for example, the average compounded annual lifetime earnings rate for all-female clubs was 23.8 percent, compared with 19.2 percent for all-male clubs. The rate for mixed- gender clubs was 21.4 percent. The NAIC found women-only clubs do better for several reasons: * They tend to buy stocks at better prices than men-only clubs. After deciding what stock to buy, men-only clubs usually buy at current market prices. Women-only clubs raise an additional question before buying: "What should we pay for it?" * Women-only clubs aren't inclined to buy on investment tips, as men-only clubs do. * Women-only clubs have more patience. They hew to a "buy-and- hold" strategy and are more willing to ride out the rough times to realize a profit on an investment. "Women's investment clubs typically follow NAIC's long-term investment philosophy by the book," Strong said.

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