Permanent Portfolio and the male:female ratio

[6 Iron]

I enjoy looking at the statistics on this board, and noticed the male to female ratio at 1:0. I suspect that, like me, many people did not enter a gender. There may be multiple women on this board, and I am making a faulty assumption. But here goes: why the limited appeal of the permanent portfolio to women? When I discuss it with my wife, she glazes over and looks as if I am trying to discuss with her how to perform Latin verb conjugations.

[Pkg Man]

Actually I am not too surprised by the ratio. I bet you would find that it is not just the PP, but any finance-type blog and the ratio of M/F would be skewed.

Feel free to PM me with hate mail if I have offended anyone.

[6 Iron]

.... but any finance-type blog and the ratio of M/F would be skewed.

There may be some truth to that. My exposure to finance forums is limited to the bogleheads, and while I have seen female representation, it does not appear proportionate. I suspect that I come into it with a biased assumption that the poster is male, until proven otherwise. Still, back when I was reading, and rereading the PP thread on bogleheads, I recalled a very few posters that were recognizably female.

While this may seem random, my hope ultimately, is to engender in my wife a confidence to continue with this portfolio should something happen to me.  I am hoping for consistent performance over time to be persuasive, but at present, I lack the confidence that she would stick with it during a prolonged secular bull market for equities.

[pplooker]

I read somewhere once where some sociologist pointed out that women, overall, are socialized differently and are overall less likely to frequent internet discussion boards for X, Y, and Z reasons.  I don't remember exactly but the thought was like this: the information on a board like this is topical and kind of impersonal.

What that researcher was saying, and I've read this in other sources too, is that adult women are more likely to turn to a perceived expert for guidance than go out and pull little snippets of information together and direct their decision making that way.  More women use CFPs than men, etc.

This isn't necessarily bad, or good, it's just different.  The problem I can see however is twofold:

A) A lot of the people who are perceived experts in our society are often crooks.  Most people willing to set up a brokerage account for you are also willing to sell you products they get lots of commission on and charge you fees just for having an account open.

B) Even when the perceived expert is of pure intent, the expert may not be an expert.  I'm the financial guy for several women in my family, and I feel I'm perceived as an expert for my occupation, interests, hobbies, experiences, and education.  That sounds good, but I am not an expert.  John Bogle is an expert.  Harry Browne is an expert.  Etc.  I wouldn't want to be an expert anyway, an “ex”? is a has-been and a “spurt”? is a drip under pressure.

Also, there's a much larger underlying problem that’s not gender specific: we are incredibly ignorant as a culture about these matters.  I just think it comes out different ways.

I read somewhere once some blogger cut out a bunch of headlines from women’s magazines and pointed out how vapid and cursory the content of the articles was, even if it was generally benign advice (save, diversify, open an IRA, etc.).  Then she (I think it was a she) compared them to some articles from magazines with a mostly male readership, which dealt with taking very aggressive moves but the articles were much more in depth and technical in comparison (buy this stock, sell that one, how to get rich with options, this sector is hot, this manager has a hot hand, etc.).

So from what I can tell, women are expected to know absolutely nothing and should be wowed by very basic information, and men are expected to completely overlook basic principles and make lots of risky moves that might not even make sense.  Swell, misogyny and misandry are both alive and well.

Finally, there’s a cultural variable at play here too.  Historically, men had a lower opportunity cost of managing wealth than women.  Some may be more abrasive about this, but I feel this is ultimately what it boiled down to.  And I’m not saying the way society treated the different genders was fair, is fair, or ever will be fair.  That cultural expectation is still very strong, I see it in my own life as I am that “expert”? to several women.

And I’ll be honest, if I ever got married I expect I’ll make the budget (after she tells me exactly what it will be of course) and I’ll balance the portfolio.  This has nothing to do with inherent capability in terms of biological gender, but rather my personal tendency to be a money nerd and the fact I’m more likely to put the effort forth to manage investments than most people, female or not.

[Pres]

I'm male, but if it can help encourage female participation, I'm willing to set my profile to female.

[Indices]

I stated on the Bogleheads forum that women had an aversion to mathematics and was called by several people a chauvinist and a bigot, and that I was essentially stating women were stupider than men. Of course all I said was that women had an aversion to math, not that they were stupid.

Glad to see that this forum has a freer atmosphere in which to state the obvious!

[craigr]

I think in most households men usually handle the investing decisions based on my informal observations.

Yet, if you study behavioral finance men are way too overconfident and are well advised to talk over their decisions with the significant other who can often balance out the testosterone.

When I told my wife we were switching our investment strategy to the Permanent Portfolio many years ago she was actually quite happy. She felt what I was doing before was too risky. She is very comfortable with how the money is invested now and understands the principles behind the portfolio. I had her listen to the first two Harry Browne investment shows where he goes over the 16 rules and the basic structure of the portfolio. Then she read Fail Safe investing. After that, she was sold.

And, by the way, my wife is excellent at math having graduated with a 4.0 GPA Summa Cum Laude on her BA and MS from a top engineering school.

Yet, all the math understanding in the world still can't make you successful at investing. Ask the quants on Wall St. that seem to blow everything up from time to time how their math knowledge helped them.

[Turbodevlan]

Don't let the motorcycle fool you.  I'm all woman.

I'd think that if brainpower or an aversion toward math or complexity were the problem, women would be flocking to the PP in droves.  My thesis, albeit politically incorrect, is that most women simply have no intention of dealing with certain unpleasant things so long as a man is around, and those would include not only finances, but changing flat tires, mucking gutters, and cutting the heads off chickens.  Seriously, there are a lot (really a lot) of women who, when faced with financial difficulties of any kind immediately go looking for a man.  Sad, but true.  Muking gutters isn't all that bad.

For me it's the "faith" element of the PP that causes me the most angst.  Believe it or not, I feel much less fearful trading commodities futures than I do sitting back and letting the 4x25 do its thing because, in the former instance, I'm in control (or at least have the illusion of it.)  But I'm working on mental tricks with which to address the problem, because inteilectually I've come around to the belief that the PP is the soundest of all investment options  out there.

Great site, Craig.  Nice to meet ya'al.

[craigr]

Welcome to the forum.

The permanent portfolio let's me sleep soundly at night. Once an investor embraces that the world is uncertain it allows one to develop strategies to deal with it effectively. This is a core concept in the permanent portfolio and why it works so well. IMO.

[pplooker]

Yet, all the math understanding in the world still can't make you successful at investing. Ask the quants on Wall St. that seem to blow everything up from time to time how their math knowledge helped them.

This is SO true.  My undergrad degree is in mathematics and I've done some dumb, dumb money stuff.  Of course I've turned it around too, but clearly formal knowledge of mathematics isn't the only factor.

[6 Iron]

 Believe it or not, I feel much less fearful trading commodities futures than I do sitting back and letting the 4x25 do its thing because, in the former instance, I'm in control (or at least have the illusion of it.)  

I think this is, or was true for many of us (well, maybe not options trading, but management of your investments, based on what you think is likely to happen). I know in my own career, that when people are given a choice between doing something and doing less or nothing, they usually pick "something", even without strong support of benefit, with limited consideration of downside risk. MediumTex referred to this indirectly on the boglehead forum, when he likened it to every one's desire to futz with a fire, whether it needs it or not. These forums provide an intellectual outlet for that futzing, hopefully keeping one from doing something stupid.