Welcome to our #237 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we spotlight the interview on The Purse Podcast with Grace O’Brien and Sam Rowlands, creative leaders at AKQA and co-founders of Pink Chip:
a collection of indices which measures the outperformance of women-led companies against global benchmarks such as the S&P 500.
The aim of the Pink Chip Index is to prove how economically powerful female leadership is, and how much gender bias is hurting women and investors.
Listen to the full interview here.
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And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Until next week,
Jana
Pink Chip: investing in women CEOs makes money for investors
We interviewed Grace O’Brien and Sam Rowlands, creative leaders at agency AKQA, to talk about the launch of Pink Chip and the Pink Chip Index.
(Image source: generated by ChatGPT).
Women CEOs generate superior returns for investors.
And the data backs this up.
But only 7% of CEOs are women. And when a female CEO is appointed to a publicly listed company, the stock price drops by 2-3%.
Why? Gender bias.
This is not only hurting women, but investors are losing money too.
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Grace O’Brien and Sam Rowlands, creative leaders at AKQA, decided to do something about it.
They launched Pink Chip: a collection of indices which measures the outperformance of women-led companies against global benchmarks such as the S&P 500.
The aim of the Pink Chip Index is to prove how economically powerful female leadership is, and how much this bias is hurting women and investors.
It tracks 44 women-led US publicly listed companies. And benchmarks these against the S&P 500 and TM Large, the male equivalent of the criteria, to show how much better they are doing.
The Index helps to focus investors attention on the data, not on the CEO’s gender.
Bear in mind, this isn’t just another DEI initiative.
The Pink Index is an investment tool which highlights the strong performance of women-led companies.
It's about making money for investors.
Check out these jaw-dropping stats:
The Pink Chip Index has outperformed traditional indices with a 184% increase over four years, beating the S&P 500 by 80%+
What companies make the cut?
companies with women CEOs
$2bn market cap
8% annual growth over 3 years.
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Sam Rowlands shares how she initially came up with the concept, on The Purse Podcast:
"It all started with this (competition) brief that really got under my skin: 'How do we get more women to invest?’
It annoyed me because, let's face it, women are already better investors. So, I decided to flip the brief on its head.
Instead of focusing on getting women to invest more, why not create a category of female-led companies you could invest in and put that on an app?
Plus women are more likely to invest in what they know, trust, and align with their values personal goals, like climate change.”
She goes on to say:
“We pitched the concept to financial services companies multiple times, but it never seemed to be the right time, or it was too difficult to get off the ground…”
But Sam and Grace doubled-down: they were determined to bring this concept to life. They reached out to Thematic, an indices and financial calculator company and they loved the idea.
This gave Sam and Grace the momentum they needed:
“It was like: 'Screw it, we're doing it ourselves.'
If no one else was going to let us make it, we'd do it on our own."
According to Grace:
"It was actually really freeing to just decide to go for it.
We believed in the idea and knew it had to be made. Not pitching it out anymore and just making it ourselves was probably the best decision we made. It was tough, but addressing market bias was our goal, and taking control of the project was key."
"We're not a financial company, so being able to tackle this as a story-led initiative was quite interesting. It's lovely to have such a strong brand story.
It's not just an Index on a website; it's a narrative that influences and encourages people. There are other index products out there, but what makes Pink Chip unique is our storytelling and branding.
We're advocates, raising awareness and changing behaviour."
And here they are: proving that female-led companies not only perform well, but outperform traditional indices.
“It’s about showing the financial world that investing in female leadership is not just a moral choice, but a smart financial one”.
Listen to the full interview on The Purse Podcast.
News in Brief
Financial news
Dow Jones Industrial Index blew through a new historic milestone: 40,000. (The Index needed 908 trading sessions to hit 40,000, much shorter than the 999 sessions it took to first reach 30,000 from 20,000).
The next meme thing to ride? Silver rises to $30.5/oz, highest level since 2013.
Dollar rally falters as falling inflation raises hopes of rate cuts. US currency on track for first negative month of the year after end to months of above-forecast CPI data.
US core inflation cools for first time in 6 months in relief for the Fed and financial markets. April core CPI (excl food and energy costs), increased 0.3% from March MoM after +0.4% MoM previous month.
US: May Fund Manager Survey (FMS) sentiment is at the most bullish level since Nov’21, BofA says. The average cash level of FMS investors fell to 4.0% of AUM from 4.2%, lowest since Jun’21.
Three UK banks announce cuts to cost of fixed-rate mortgages. Barclays Bank, HSBC and TSB reveal reductions, reversing some of price rises seen in recent weeks.
GameStop is trying to profit from the retail investor hype. May sell up to 45m shares of class A stock through “at the market offering.” Shares crash another 27%.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi
Bitcoin has returned to over $66,000, marking its best week since the early days of March.
Ethereum price rallies above $3,100 after unexpected regulatory victory. The document stated that “Ethereum is a decentralised blockchain […] without the need for a trusted intermediary” and added, “No central actor runs the Ethereum Network.” These statements boosted Ether investors’ confidence.
Daniel Cheung, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, expressed confidence in the strength of Solana (SOL) and its potential to reclaim the $200 mark.
ShibaSwap 2.0 goes live on Shiba Inu’s Layer 2 blockchain. Shiba Inu’s ecosystem has been among the most active in the past year or so, and this week marked the migration of the native decentralised exchange to Shibarium in the form of ShibaSwap 2.0.
Morgan Stanley reveals $269 million investment in Grayscale’s GBTC. Publicly listed US giants had to disclose their financial activities during the first quarter of the year in separate filings to the US SEC.
Wisconsin State £164m BTC investment could cause chain reaction from other States. One of the other notable and perhaps surprising names on the BTC bandwagon list was the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB).
CME Group plans spot Bitcoin trading amid rising Wall Street demand. CME Group, a traditional finance giant that has a rich history with the cryptocurrency industry, is reportedly looking into entering the spot Bitcoin trading market.
The Purse Podcast
We cover the following in this conversation:
Investor gender bias
The outperformance of female CEO leadership
The Pink Chip Index -why we need it
The journey to launch
The criteria used for the Pink Chip index
Performance vs standard indices
The impact on promoting gender diversity and inclusion
What's next for the Pink Chip?
What do companies need to do to be included in the Pink Chip Index?
Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+
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We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.
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Pink Chip: investing in women CEOs makes money for investors. And listen to the podcast interview with co-founders Grace O'Brien and Sam Rowlands