I have a confession to make. Me and investing? We’re kinda on a break.
As a financial broadcaster and journalist, and someone who has written a whole bloomin’ book about how to get into the stock market, I don’t make this admission lightly.
However, a new campaign aims to kickstart honest conversations about why women don’t invest as much as men.
So now’s the time to share why I’ve been taking some time out from trading.
It wasn’t a messy break-up – I’ve just drifted apart from my stocks and shares Isa, gradually selling my investments. I’m still committed to my personal pension and Lifetime Isa – both are essential for a self-employed woman with no workplace scheme.
Even so, I’m playing it safe, opting more for vanilla Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) rather than buzzy tech shares. I’m also dabbling in gold – the classic ‘safe haven’ that is making a comeback – and I still have a few investment trusts.
Mostly, though, I’ve been chasing the best savings rates, trying to earn a real return on my cash after inflation.
It’s a far cry from those heady lockdown days when I opened an Isa on a trendy investing app, swept up in the excitement that the market would rebound from the Covid crash. It did – but boy was it a rollercoaster.
As prices lurched up and down, I learned in real time that the stock market can be a cruel mistress.
Still, I stuck with it, convinced my stocks and shares Isa was for keeps. And like any worthwhile relationship, you shouldn’t walk away even when things get tough.
So, what happened? I admit it – my eyes wandered. Priorities started to shift as I got into my 30s.
I started saving for a flat, then for a home with my partner, and maybe a family one day. All of this requires a terrifying amount of cash if you live anywhere near the south-east of England.
It also means you need your money to be liquid and available potentially at a moment’s notice. Suddenly, staking your dream home fund on how traders might react to Donald Trump’s latest musings didn’t seem to be wise.
What also doesn’t help is large swathes of the media predicting another stock market crash, with the AI investing bubble potentially bursting any day.
Add to that the uncertainty about inflation, interest rates, tax rises and even the security of white-collar jobs, and you can see why I’ve decided for now to keep my powder dry.
Have I lost my nerve? Maybe. Investment gurus like to say, ‘Time in the market beats timing the market’. Stay invested, keep calm, carry on.
However, life gets in the way. Many women face complex, messy trade-offs about how they use their money responsibly. Childcare costs, career breaks, and the sheer unpredictability of modern life mean that tying up money for five or ten years can feel unrealistic.
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The investment platform eToro wants to change the way we talk about women and investing. It looked at more than 80 reports and campaigns published by the financial industry on this subject between 2020 – 2025, and found that 57 per cent had a ‘negative and patronising’ angle.
Most of the rhetoric leaned into clichés about women ‘lacking confidence’ and being reluctant to take risks.
The platform itself is trying to move away from a bit of a ‘bro’ image. Since its UK launch in 2013, eToro became a go-to destination for amateur traders keen on racy assets such as cryptocurrency and tech stocks.
Men make up most of its investors and ‘popular’ traders, who publicly share their portfolios so others can replicate their gains.
Successful women on the platform such as Heloïse Greeff, who is responsible for managing more than about £3.8million in assets, stand out more than they should.
What do you think about the idea of taking breaks from investing to adapt to different life priorities?
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It's a wise approach for financial planning.
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I prefer to stay consistently invested, regardless of circumstances.
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It depends on individual situations and goals.
To be fair, no other investment platform has meaningfully shifted the dial on this issue.
The UK still has a gender investment gap now worth a staggering £678billion, says eToro. Subtly blaming women, telling them they just need to get with the project, is clearly not going to work. However, the industry does need to meet women where they’re at.
There may be times in a woman’s life where she won’t be able to invest a lot – or maybe anything at all. That doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause, though.
The real goal is to keep the door open, to see investing not as a test of courage but as something you can return to when the time is right.
Meanwhile, I’m holding out hope that I can return to investing outside my retirement funds soon. While we may be on a break, like Ross and Rachel in Friends, I have a feeling we’re not done yet.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
Share your views in the comments below.
