Swissquote’s Peter Rosenstreich has faith in female execs, takes a look at trading stock of companies led by women – Industry perspective

Recently, FinanceFeeds CEO Andrew Saks-McLeod discussed Themes Trading with Swissquote Group Holding SA (SWX:SQN) senior executive Ryan Nettles at the company’s corporate headquarters in Gland, Switzerland.

Mr. Nettles provided a full insight into the sophisticated proprietary trading topography which Swissquote uses, demonstrating the advantage in terms of value proposition that Swiss banks hold over some of their overseas peers.

The company builds its own proprietary systems, its own risk management as well as its own liquidity aggregator which connects to liquidity provision from Tier 1 banks and ECNs. This, in turn, allows Swissquote to implement its own specialist themes.

Thematic trading was launched by Swissquote in the summer of this year, and provides traders with an environment in which they can trade short or long term in specialist sectors or macro-economic themes.

The growing trend within the retail investment sector was capitalized upon, and speaking to Mr. Nettles, has been one of the most avantgarde and interesting developments this summer.

Today, Peter Rosenstreich, Head of Market Strategy at Swissquote has taken a look at thematic trading with regard to the publicly traded stock of companies with female CEOs.

“It is often said that if women ruled the world people would be lot better off” stated Mr. Rosenstreich.

“Though women still have yet to gain the upper hand in the corporate world, they are making good progress” he continued.

“Research has shown that businesses led by women tend to perform better financially. Numerous studies show a strong link between CEO gender and better return on equity, superior stock performance and higher valuations and dividend payouts. According to research by Fortune magazine, female CEOs have seen an average of 103.4% return during their tenure compared with an average of 69.5% for the S&P 500 index. Another study showed that, between 2002 and 2014, the 80 female CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies generated equity returns of 226%, outperforming the S&P 500. We built this theme by creating a universe of female-led Fortune 500 companies and taking the top 20 based on market capitalization, equally weighted” observed Mr. Rosenstreich.

The diversification into asset classes such as company stocks, and the ability to trade specific themes within such asset classes demonstrates the growing need for electronic trading companies to diversify, and for research specialists within the companies to study a wide range of economic and macro-economic factors aside from keeping tabs on the currency markets.

If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman – Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, 1979 to 1990.

Mr. Rosenstreich’s observations are indeed astute. Within our own industry, it is quite clear that the leading ladies have powered their firms to success.

Diana Munoz, a well renowned leader within Cyprus’ retail FX industry explained to FinanceFeeds “It is a known fact that those 5% of women executives in the FX industry are exceptional leaders and their companies become incredibly successful. Many are the reasons why there are more men than women in the FX industry, some are complex and some are just a fact; men are more aggressive and more driven. They can commit themselves more to such a demanding industry, whereas women have to raise families and so on. The arguments are vast and varied but from my own experience I can confirm that when a woman achieves FX Stardom in this male dominated industry, she receives more admiration and support than back stab wounds. In fact I believe that FX males are hoping to see more females join the FX world and are eager to welcome a testosterone and estrogen decorated industry!”

Speaking to FinanceFeeds recently, Mehtap Onder, Regional Director at CFH Clearing explained “When the opportunities arise I’ll take the chance even if it involves a high risk of failure. The key thing is having the right attitude. Also, I think it is important to look beyond your diploma, your current job description and comfort zone in order to enhance your career.”

Natallia Hunik, Head of Institutional Sales at Advanced Markets & Fortex explained to FinanceFeeds in Boston, Massachusetts last week that she had led her predominantly female executive team to success at Boston Technologies whilst expanding the firm globally before bringing the entire team to Advanced Markets in order to work efficiently toward developing the firm’s global wholesale business.

It is worthy of note that one of Britain’s largest hedge funds, Newton Investment Management, which has an astonishing £51 billion in assets under management is run and operate by Helena Morrissey, a mother to 9 children.

Us men just do not get multi-tasking!

Featured image: Mehtap Onder, Regional Director, CFH Clearing, Right- Natallia Hunik, Global Head of Sales, Advanced Markets and Fortex. Bottom left- Diana Munoz, Independent FX Business Development Exec.