Feminine Interests

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 893, 10 February 1930, Page 5

Feminine Interests

WOMEN INVESTORS

MUCH OF INDIVIDUAL WEALTH OF U.S.A. IS CONTROLLED BY WOMEN

According to an authoritative estimate, 41 per cent, of the United States individual wealth is controlled by women, says a writer in an overseas journal. Approximately 8,500,000 females are gainfully employed, and statistics show that women are the beneficiaries of 80 per cent, of the 95,000,000,000 dollar life insurance policies in force in the United States. They receive 70 per cent, of the estates left by men, and 64 per cent, of those left by other women. They pay taxes ori more than three and aquarter billions of individual income annually, and the returns show a surprisingly large proportion of women millionaires.

The stock market is the appropriate investment outlet for much of this stockinged wealth. Women in every walk of life are taking seriously the problem of administering intelligently the funds they earn or inherit. An increasing number of widows and heiresses, who formerly relied on the advice of male relatives and friends, now investigate their own stocks and choose their own investments. In some Stock Exchange firms women are rigidly excluded; in others they may wander at will. Hence, within the last two years, at least 20 firms have found it necessary to set aside rooms for the exclusive use of women customers. These women’s rooms are made inviting with upholstered armchairs and sofas, shaded lights and deep pile carpets. Everything is done for the customers' comfort. In one office a maid is in attendance, and the broad window at one end of the room is fitted with a pane of special vita-glass. Here enthusiastic gamblers may sit and incres.se in health and sun-tan, while they figure points profit.

All of the women’s rooms are equipped with the wall Translux, which, like a moving picture on green, reproduces the magnified figures of the ticker tape. Several firms have gone father and installed boards, on whose checkered surfaces quotation clerks change the prices with cardboard squares, just as they do in the adjoining men’s department. Women managers are in charge. In one of the pioneer offices women comprise the entire personnel. Brokers have found that women prefer their own private rooms. The quiet atmosphere encourages beginners to come in and learn that the cryptic letters and numbers on the ticker tape are not so fearsome as they look. The patience of the woman manager, her willingness to explain elementary questions, engenders confidence. A large number of these new gamblers are business women—owners of specialty shops, tea rooms, or decorating firms; buyers for department stores, copy writers for advertising firms, and professional women—living on part of their incomes and investing the remainder. For the rich woman the stock market is taking /the place of bridge. As an afternoon’s sport it offers more thrills than a game of cards. And many a servant girl owns a few shares of something. Even more surprising than business women and heiresses is the influx into the stock market of the home-and-mother type of woman who, 10 years ago, never lifted her eyes from her knitting except to slip the pacifier back into the bahy’s mouth.

There are still technical restrictions on women’s stock trading. None has ever become a member of the New York Stock Exchange. But three pioneers already have applied for admission to membership, and a number of women are said to be actual partners in Stock Exchange houses. Prophets are not lacking who- foresee the day, five or ten years hence, when there will be women on the floor.