For decades, the image of the Stock Exchange was a stressful environment, where men were surrounded by countless phones and several calls at the same time and a lot of shouting. This situation seems to have stayed in the past. The environment has changed physically, since operations today are done digitally, but also in relation to the male profile of investors. The women appear to have invaded the operation.
Over the past fifteen years, the number of women operating at B3, the Brazilian Stock Exchange, has been growing. From 2004 until today, the increase reached an impressive 900%. Currently, 227 thousand women choose to buy and sell stocks, bonds and fund shares in Brazil, which represents 22% of the total CPFs registered at the institution.
These variable income products, that is, in which it is not possible to define how much your money will yield in a given period, are still passed over by the Brazilian, who prefers to leave the money in traditional savings. But, little by little, it is also gaining space among investors.
The doctor Renata Rodrigues, 27, decided to take a risk in this world of investments. About three years ago, she decided to allocate 5% of everything she saved to buy shares through a broker.
"My money in savings was no longer yielding as before, so I realized that I needed to look for other solutions. That was when my husband told me about the shares and I decided, with the help of a professional, to see some papers", says Renata.
When buying shares, for example, the investor has a small shareholding in the chosen company. The papers may appreciate or devalue, depending on the results of the company, and this can turn profit or loss for the investor. A bid.
Renata then chose to buy papers from Petrobras, Itaú Unibanco and Embraer. Despite having allocated part of the income in some actions, the doctor does not intend to increase the percentage for variable income investments. "I still prefer to leave the rest in less risky options, even with savings or some treasury bill," she says.
How do they view risk?
Like Renata, women, in general, do not like to take many risks, according to the analysis of Virginia Prestes, investment specialist and professor of finance at FAAP. According to her, female people are more thoughtful when it comes to putting money into something.
"From experience, the female client is usually much more conservative than the men. They want to understand better how it works, are more cautious when investing, are more averse to risk than men," she says.
For Prestes, being more cautious in the investment option, however, is not necessarily a bad feature.
"Although women are more conservative, on the other hand, in general, they do better in investments because they study more and go deeper into it. They study before making investment decisions," she says. For her, the ideal profile of the investor would be to have the affection of women, with the boldness of men.
The bag's way of life
The arrival of women in a predominantly male environment is not restricted to sporadic investments and advice from husbands.
Although still rare, there are also those who live on just that, as is the case with Natália Dalat, 27. With a degree in information technology management, she worked in a public office in Goiânia until she became interested in investments.
"I started investing with R $ 1,000. I started studying a lot on the internet, I developed and, over time, I became passionate about it. I decided I wanted to do this and quit my job to live off the profits from operations", she says .
Since then, she has lived on "trade" (transactions of purchase and sale of shares). "I earned R $ 1,600 a month as an advisor, but I worked as if I were a secretary. As I was the only woman, I even had to answer the phone when it rang. Today I earn ten times more," she says.
Natália says that, despite the good financial return, the routine to live in the market requires a lot of study and, mainly, discipline. It operates in "day trade" (when the purchase and sale of securities occurs on the same day) and "swing trade" (when the operation lasts longer) through a tool that connects the investor to the trading floor of any location , including home, called "home broker".
"I wake up around six in the morning, set up my [stock] charts, see macroeconomic news and if there is going to be something relevant. I mark the previous day's points on the chart to start trading and at 9:00 am I already look at the movements. I stay up to 12h operating ", she says that, in the afternoons, she dedicates herself to leisure.
However, it is still an exception in a predominantly male market. "In the brokerage area, less than ten percent of professionals are women," says Virginia Prestes, who has worked in large companies in the financial market.
"Even in my last job I had about 40 men for two women, but I never suffered prejudice for being a woman. One thing I noticed: when I was in the position of manager, I would have liked to hire more women, but I didn't even receive CVs for be able to interview and hire, says the expert.