Bloomberg: Investment Management Is Still a Boys' Club, Goldmand Fins

Published November, 2019

By Felice Maranz

– All-male teams run 409 out of 528 large-cap mutual funds
– Women get similar returns compared to their male peers

Portfolio management remains largely a band of brothers, new research by Goldman Sachs finds.

An analysis of 528 large-cap mutual funds showed 409, or 77%, had all-male portfolio management teams, strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a note on Nov. 25. Those funds accounted for 64% of domestic equity mutual fund assets.

Only 15 funds, or 3% had all-female teams, managing 1% of total assets. Just 73 funds, or 14%, with 196 billion in assets under management, have women in at least one-third of portfolio manager positions.

Despite their small numbers, women get similar returns as their male peers.

Since the start of 2017, 39% of female-managed funds have outperformed benchmarks annually compared with 41% for all other funds, while return of volatility and Sharpe ratios have “also been almost identical across all-male, all female, and mixed-gender teams,” Kostin and his co-authors wrote.

One difference between the two genders is the sectors they favor. Women put more money into information technology, utilities and consumer staples; men like financial services companies.

At the stock-level, women have higher relative exposure to Amazon.com, Apple, Nike, Microsoft and Merck, but lower exposure to Berkshire Hathaway, Comcast, UnitedHealth, JPMorgan Chase, and Booking Holdings.

More Funds Run by Daves Than Women | Morningstar