Women in Forex – 5 years later

Five years ago, we published a series of interviews with women of the Forex trading world. We talked with 8 women with different backgrounds and profession and from different generations. But all passionately trading currencies. We wanted to know what they have been experiencing in the last 5 years: do they have the same job? Do they have the same opinions about men and women in Forex? How do they manage to balance private and professional lives?

We have been in touch with all of them (Karen Jones, Jody Samuels, Carol Harmer, Triffany Hammond, Valeria Bednarik, Kathy Lien, Jane Foley and Raghee Horner) and they happily agreed to give us un update about their life. We will be publishing their interviews in the coming days and weeks. Some made radical changes, you will see!

More women in trading

A study about the state of the Retail Foreign Exchange Market released by Citi in January 2014 reports that in Europe more than 40% of retail traders are women!

In an article of 2013 in the Time, we can read why Japanese women are flocking to Forex trading. “Marooned at home because of the lack of career opportunities in a male-dominated business world, lacking child-care support and penalized by a tax system that didn’t encourage their participation in the labor force, many Japanese women found that they could bolster tight budgets by performing online forex trades in between chores and shopping for groceries.” They explain that “women in Japan make up approximately 25% of the nation’s vast retail forex-trading market.”

More recently, in April, City Index published an infography called ” The rise of the female trader”. Numbers speak for themselves: “46% more women opened accounts in January to March 2015 than in January to March 2014. On Average, women are responsible for 8% of the total trades placed each month.” Among the markets they trade, 80% of women trade Indices then come currencies with 10%.

They are also more visible

Not only are there more women behind trading platforms, they are also gaining ground in the media. Some of them certainly saw an opportunity in this rising niche of female traders.

This is for example the case of Kiana Danial, who runs Invest Diva. Danial, of Iranian descent, was lured into forex trading while studying in Japan. She wrote a book about Forex trading, runs a blog, sells her analysis and is active on social media. She was interviewed by Dale Pinkert in our Live Analysis Room a few weeks ago. There is also “High Heeled Traders” by Charmel and Mary Delos Santos who grew up in the Philippines

In celebration of the International Women’s Day 2015, Forex broker Orbex launched the “#InvestLikeHer” campaign aims at raising awareness of successful women in finance and at telling their stories of success.

Increasingly equal opportunity

In 2011, Emily Lambert signed a paper in Forbex explaing why more women are trading, mentioning the trading hours flexibility and the ability to trade electonically from home. She concludes her article by saying: “Despite it all, female traders are still rare. […] Perhaps many women are smart to avoid the profession, which doubles as a quick and easy way to lose a lot of money. But win or lose, at least it’s increasingly equal opportunity.”