Women investors did better in 2015

Investing website Openfolio released information Thursday about its members’ results this past year and not surprisingly, they weren’t all that great.

Openfolio’s average investor lost 3.09% in 2015 compared to 0.73% for the S&P 500 and 2.23% for the Dow. Overall, two-thirds of the social media site’s members lost money on their portfolios this past year, a reminder to investors why passive investing is still a smart idea if you don’t feel confident about your own stock-picking acumen.

For those unfamiliar with Openfolio here is a blurb from their site:

“Openfolio brings the principles and power of social networks – openness, connectivity, collective intelligence – to the world of personal investing. The “open” in our name is no accident. When you join, you give the people in your network visibility into the moving parts of your portfolio. Not the dollar amounts, naturally, but the individual components – the stocks, mutual funds, bonds and ETFs you’re holding, buying and selling. And, of course, you get the same access to their portfolios. So everyone learns from everyone.”

In other words the 3.09% loss by its members – Openfolio portfolios were up 5.2% in 2014 versus 7.5% for the Dow and 11.4% for the S&P 500 – suggests while learning is to be had from the social media experiment there’s little tangible proof available since its inception.

There are other interesting observations about its investor members and their performance.

• Women did better than men losing 2.54%, 124 basis points less;
• Younger investors lost more with those under 25 averaging a 3.8% decline compared to a drop of 1.7% for those 65 and older;
• Energy professionals took the biggest hit down 4.31% while teachers bled the least losing just 1.5% on average;
• Investors with iPhone 6 or newer did better than Apple users with older phones;
• Harvard and Columbia investors made money while many schools in California; and
• Gemini’s did the worst