BMO Nesbitt Burns BMO-T on Tuesday released results of a recent survey that is supposed to point us toward stocks – um, and a financial adviser – but they really buried the more interesting stuff.
First, their big news: Apparently, 62 per cent of Canadians are optimistic about the future of the stock market, but only 13 per cent are more likely to invest in equities.
“With Canadians having experienced two bear markets in the last decade, it's not surprising that investors may be a bit wary of the stock market,” said Michael Herring, managing director and investment strategist at BMO Nesbitt Burns, in the release.
Wary isn’t wise, he suggests. Indeed, he goes on to say that now is a “great time” to invest, although he doesn’t say why. Is it simply because small investors are optimistic?
But what’s interesting about the survey is what it says about the differences between male and female investors. These differences have been pointed out before – most notably by professors Terrance Odean and Brad Barber, in their academic paper “Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment.” The idea here is that men tend to think that they’re pretty savvy investors, and therefore trade stocks more frequently than women, often to their detriment.
The BMO Nesbitt Burns survey doesn’t delve into the investment results of men and women, but it does offer two throwaway nuggets of behavioural differences, which are the most fascinating part of the survey:
1. Men are more likely than women to invest in equities (25 per cent v. 13 per cent) and are more likely to make changes to their investment accounts (41 per cent v. 34 per cent);
2. Men are more optimistic about the future of the stock market relative to women (69 per cent v. 55 per cent).
These are big differences.
