text: Schwab: Male SDBA Clients Taking More Risk | PLANSPONSOR
  Investing May 27, 2005
  Schwab: Male SDBA Clients Taking More Risk
  May 27, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Men take more risk with their retirement savings than women, but women are executing trades in their self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBA) more often than they have before, a new Charles Schwab SDBA report indicated.
  A Charles Schwab news release said the company's latest data on its 65,000 participants in its Personal Choice Retirement Account as of March 31, 2005 indicated male SDBA clients had a lower cash level in their portfolio (19% for men, versus 28% for women) and more in equities (35% for men, 22% for women).
  Meanwhile, men make 4.05 quarterly trades versus 3.48 for women – mostly in the equity markets, according to Schwab. But women SDBA clients are trading more than they have been with account activity up 13.7% from last year, the data indicated.
  Schwab said its average Personal Choice Retirement Account client was 45 years old and had an average $102,783 ($164,746 for men, $91,862 for women) account balance. The average client executed 3.45 trades per quarter with 1.72 in equities (2.06 for men, 0.86 for women) and 1.70 in mutual funds (1.95 for men, 2.60 for women), had 3.24 equity positions and 2.58 mutual fund positions, the Schwab data indicated.
  In terms of portfolio breakdowns, Schwab said SDBA clients have stayed nearly the same as last year with 47% of assets in mutual funds, 29% in equities, 20% in cash, and 4% in fixed income as of March 31, 2005. Schwab said that mutual funds enjoyed the strongest net inflows at 57.2% in the latest data, with equities at 27.6%, and fixed income at 15.7%.
  Within the equity markets, Schwab said both genders cut their positions in the information technology sector while female SDBA customers continued with significant positions in consumer discretionary, health care and financial stocks. Overall equity holdings by sector as of March 31, 2005 included: