Numerous studies show that firms with a better proportion of girls in leadership positions (WIL) perform higher on plenty of metrics. Based on WIL and other gender equality criteria, the 29 Gender Lens Equity Funds (GLEFs) There are 13 global equity funds and 16 regional equity offerings available for retail investors. As of March 31, 2021, the GLEF Group’s assets under management amounted to US$3.28 billion.
Parallel to global stocks These funds generally posted single-digit gains within the three-month period ended March 31, 2021with several funds achieving double-digit gains. The absolute returns for the 12 months were strongly positive for the worldwide and regional equity segments. The relative performance was mixed for each periods.
As the economic recovery begins, financials is the most important GICS sector by AUM for the group as of March 31, followed by information technology. These sectors have topped the GLEF group’s allocation positions for the past two years.
No sector achieved greater than 50% in equality, in line with the 2020 study “Global Report and Ranking on Gender Equality” by Equileap, which provides gender rankings for a world dataset of the three,700 largest publicly traded firms. Sector rankings ranged from 31% to 39%, with information technology coming in last. Persistent gender inequality in technology firms just isn’t a brand new phenomenon and has been widely documented.
Technology stocks turn in a milder quarter
Over the past two calendar years, the most important technology and technology-related stocks have been the driving forces behind overall market returns. This trend slowed in the primary quarter because the S&P 500 Information Technology NTR Index underperformed the S&P 500 Index. Seven of the most important technology players have turn out to be often known as FANGMAN stocks: Facebook, Apple, NVIDIA, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix. These posted mixed returns for the quarter, with only three outperforming the S&P 500 Index.
Amazon, Facebook and Google are facing antitrust scrutiny. Facebook and Google have come under pressure over privacy and security issues, and Netflix is facing increased competition.
Nevertheless, the market capitalization of those FANGMAN shares was $8.16 trillion at the tip of the quarter. 17% of your complete US stock market As of March 31, returns for the 12 months remained strong, with all but two stocks outperforming the S&P 500 index for the period.
Gender highlight on the most important technology stocks
There are 157 unique top 10 investments within the GLEF GroupOf these, 87 fall into the worldwide equity fund segment. Information technology represents the most important variety of the highest 10 holdings with 37, followed by industrials (27), consumer goods (26) and financials (24). (Three of the FANGMAN – Apple, Microsoft and NVIDIA – belong to the GICS information technology sector; Alphabet, Facebook and Netflix are within the communications services sector and Amazon is in the patron goods sector.)
All FANGMAN stocks appear within the list of top holdings for the primary quarter. Two of the U.S. equity GLEFs, the Fidelity Women’s Leadership Fund (Canada) and the Impact Shares YWCA Women’s Empowerment ETF, hold six of the seven. Of the worldwide equity funds, all however the UBS Global Gender Equality UCITS ETF hold at the least one stock, with six funds holding three of them. Of the 22 global and North American equity funds, 15 hold Microsoft, 10 hold Amazon and 7 hold Netflix. Google is held by only two GLEFs.
The WIL metrics for the FANGMAN are mixed, with significant gaps at the highest. None have a female CEO, chairman or president, lagging behind the S&P 500. where women make up 6% of CEOs. There are three female CFOs and two female COOs within the group. Board representation is a vibrant spot. Microsoft and Facebook have the strongest female board representation within the group at 45% and 44% respectively, followed by Amazon at 40%. Only NVIDIA is behind the S&P 500 (28%) and Equileap (25%) are on average for girls on boards.
But only Netflix and Amazon are at or above average for female representation. All others are below each the S&P and Equileap average female workforce share. 45% and 37% respectively. Amazon and Microsoft each lag behind the Equileap dataset when it comes to executive leadership at 17%.
In FANGMAN firms, women are underrepresented within the workforce and in the very best positions, but they perform averagely or higher on the boards.
In other gender metrics, 4 of the seven FANGMAN cases terminated or never used compulsory arbitration procedures to deal with allegations of sexual harassment, in line with the Databasea joint project between Adasina Capital, Tara Health and others. The policy has been criticized for allowing employers to cover up allegations of misconduct.
Four of the seven are included in Arjuna Capital’s latest on gender and racial pay gap transparency, where Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon all received a grade of C. In addition, only Facebook, Google and Microsoft are signatories of the UN principles for the empowerment of girlsNone of the FANGMAN made it onto the Equileap Top 100 list of leaders in gender equality in business in 2020.
There are 34 top non-FANGMAN information technology holdings within the GLEF group. Overall, these firms’ WIL metrics exceed those of FANGMAN, suggesting that GLEF investment criteria lead to higher WIL than the market rewards. There are three female CEOs, or 9%, putting the highest non-FANGMAN infotech holdings above the 6% CEOs within the S&P 500 and well above the 0% in FANGMAN. In addition to a boss and a president, there are eight female CFOs. Most notably, the feminine representation on the board of this non-FANGMAN group is 74%, well above the S&P 500 and Equileap averages. 32% don’t use compulsory arbitration to resolve sexual harassment disputes.
All of this data underscores a recurring theme: gender equality is progressing too slowly, and rather more must be done across the investment landscape before women are equally represented.
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