Gender Influence in Stock Recommendations by Equity Research Analysts

Abstract

This study empirically tests the hypothesis in the literature that women, in their investment decisions, tend to show greater risk aversion and/or a lower degree of optimism than their male counterparts by analyzing investment recommendations by Equity Research analysts in Brazil. Based on a sample of 7496 recommendations for the main companies listed on the B3 between 2009-2021, a statistically significant effect was found in the opposite direction to that predicted: recommendations made by women tended to be more optimistic. We found that the difference is specific to sell recommendations, issued more frequently by men and that the effect disappears when controlling for the coverage sector and institution, which suggests that the difference is due to the fact of women, who account for only 12.8% of all recommendations, focus on covering specific sectors, such as consumption.