Welcome to our #161 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we highlight a report by Fidelity International about women feeling less positive about their finances than men, compared to last year.
There are many reasons for this including the cost of living crisis, the gender pay gap and gender bias in the workplace.
Listen to The Purse Podcast on closing the gender wealth gap and how to manage your money, with economist and author Vicky Pryce and Chartered Financial Planner, Victoria Ross.
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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
Report: women feel less positive about their finances.
What are the reasons women are more concerned about their financial situation?
According to a report published by Fidelity International, women are suffering a decline in financial confidence at more than double the rate of men, as reported by the Financial Times.
Published ahead of International Women’s Day (IWD), here are the key findings:
Only 34% of UK women felt confident about their current financial situation (down by 15% in the past year vs 6% decline among men).
45% of men and women felt financially independent in 2022 (however, 51% of women felt financially independent vs 58% of men).
One fifth of women said that they were ‘confident in their financial situation compared to a year ago’ between 2022-2023, and men expressed a slight increase in confidence in the same period.
Given that investors believe that the interest hikes are slowing down and the central banks could ‘pivot’ towards the end of the year, this corresponds to men ‘feeling more confident’ who tend to invest more of their earnings.
However, as we know, women’s life trajectory is different…
…to men’s which exposes them to greater financial risk over the course of their life.
The cost of living crisis is putting women under more financial pressure, especially if they are unattached, divorced or single mothers.
Women have more career interruptions, work in part-time, temporary or insecure employment and live longer than their male partner. More marriages end in divorce and women are single for longer.
And women earn less than men. According to economist and author Vicky Pryce, if we combine part-time and full-time work, the gender pay gap is actually somewhere between 14%-16%.
Women are also subject to gender bias and gender discrimination in the workplace which negatively impacts their earnings.
Overtime, this compounds so that women earn approximately 30%+ less than men. This means women have less money to save and to invest. And it is not surprising that this leads to a gender wealth gap.
What is the gender wealth gap?
It is the difference in the amount of wealth owned by women and men. Wealth, in this case, refers to the total value of a person's assets, including savings, property, and investments, minus any debts. (Read more here).
According to the Office for National Statistics (UK) in 2020, the median wealth of men was £217,500, while the median wealth of women was just £100,800. This means that men in the UK had more than twice as much wealth as women on average.
Post the pandemic, the gender wealth gap is likely to be even wider.
What can women do?
And what can the government and employers do to help?
Listen to The Purse Podcast with Vicky Pryce and Victoria Ross talk about closing the gender wealth gap and how to manage your money (during times of uncertainty).
News in Brief
Financial news
Complacency in US markets? YTD S&P 500 +5%, Nasdaq 100 +12%, Goldman Sachs Expensive Software +14%, GS Unprofitable Tech +21%, GS Retail Favourites +22%. Meanwhile, VIX are near 1 year lows.
US Fed balance sheet drops by another $42.5bn to $8,339.7bn in the past week, lowest level since August 2022 as quantitative easing continues. Total assets now equal to 32% of US's GDP vs ECB's 60%, SNB's 113% and BoJ's 132%.
The value of global bonds has plunged by another $550bn this week. This brings the total bond losses over the past 5 weeks to $2.4tn. All gains since the beginning of the year have been wiped out now.
More nasty inflation data. Eurozone inflation slowed to 8.5% in Feb but exceeded 8.3% median BBG estimate. Core inflation — the key focus right now for policymakers — quickened to 5.6% from 5.3%, a fresh ATH, reinforcing expectations that ECB will have to push rates ever higher.
Money market fully price 4% Peak ECB rate for first time following hotter than expected inflation data. 4% ECB terminal rate is expected to be reached by Feb2024. That compares to a 3.5% rate expected at the start of the year.
Jeremy Hunt is ‘poised’ to extend the government’s £2,500 energy price guarantee for a further three months, rather than lift it to £3,000 as planned.
Savings: Britons can switch to get up to 7% after interest rate rises.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs
Major digital assets plunged as the business day began in Hong Kong on Friday.
Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) both dropped more than 5% as customers fled crypto bank Silvergate, whose stock tumbled 58% during U.S. trading Thursday.
Bitcoin price would retest $25K without Silvergate saga. Strong U.S. equities and a floundering dollar normally serve to boost BTC price action — but Silvergate is the elephant in the room.
Silvergate halted its institutional fiat settlement arm, the Silvergate Exchange Network, on March 3 as concerns about bankruptcy multiplied.
Ethereum devs confirm ETH staking withdrawals pushed to April. The network’s much-anticipated Shanghai upgrade, which will enable staked ETH withdrawals, was previously slated for a March release.
Coinbase ‘iterating quickly’ on NFT marketplace despite lackluster rollout. Base, is an Ethereum layer-2 sandbox for decentralised applications.
Neal Stephenson coined the word "metaverse" in his seminal 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. 30 years later, Sotheby's is auctioning off rare items associated with the book, and Stephenson is working on a new layer-1 blockchain company for the metaverse, Lamina1.
The Purse Podcast
We cover the following in our conversation:
How do we close the gender wealth gap?
How can women manage their money to protect and grow their long term financial wealth?
How can women engage more in long-term investing?
What can the government and employers do to close the gender wealth gap?
Books, blogs or podcasts to inspire or educate women on how to invest.
Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+
Coffee Break? Read This
We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka.
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