Women and Investing Study shows most women are working toward investing

Though women are doing a good job of saving their money, they may not be doing the best job of growing it. Those are the findings of Fidelity Investment’s Women and Investing Study.

“There’s more opportunity for women to grow their money,” said Lorna Kapusta, vice president of women and investing at Fidelity Investments. “When they’re saving, they’re often putting it in a bank account. What we want to talk about is taking that money from the bank account, which is really sitting on the sidelines, not earning a lot of interest and moving that to investing in the stock market, where there’s much greater potential.”

Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of women across all ages plan to take steps within the next six months to help make their money work harder and grow.

“We’ve created on our website fidelity.com/demandmore, a financial checkup which walks you through where you are and those fundamental steps you need to take. Then, once you’ve got that in place, in can take you then, through a recommendation of really how to think about moving that money, that additional money you may have from a bank account.”

Millennial women are leaning in most, with nearly half (48 percent) already investing, followed by approximately 40 percent of their Gen X and baby boomer counterparts.

“If you’ve got time and you also have a plan, so you make sure that those fundamentals are in place, you’re thoughtful about the goals you are trying to achieve and you have some time to put that money away, the stock market does have its ups and downs and we recognize that, but, over the long term, you should be in better shape.”

The results were from an online survey of 1,172 women, 21 years of age and older.