LONDON, June 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Over the last 10 years there has been a significant increase in the number of women trading, says Joshua Raymond, Chief Market Strategist of spread betting and CFD trading provider City Index (http://www.cityindex.co.uk/).

"Currently we see a far greater amount of male clients than female clients," states spread betting expert Mr. Raymond. "However, over the last decade we have seen the number of women trading increasing. On average, between 2001 and 2007, we saw an increase of 124%, year on year, of new female traders.

"However, from 2007 until early 2009, there was a fall of 71% in the amount of new women traders." Why the sudden decline? Mr. Raymond believes it could be a case of female traders being more risk-averse than their male counterparts.

"[The decline in new female traders] appears to indicate that despite the fact you can make money from bear markets by spread betting, by going short or selling prices, women appear to be more risk averse then men, and this may be why we saw a fall in the amount of new women traders between 2007 and March 2009 - a time when the FTSE 100 lost 48%."

Since then, there has been a new increase in the number of female clients joining at City Index, now growing at a rate similar to before the global financial crisis started. As Joshua Raymond points out, "this could indicate women are more strategic in their planning than men".

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About City Index:

Today more and more individual traders are discovering the benefits of derivatives, and many of them are discovering them through City Index trading platforms.

As a group, we transact in excess of 1.5 million trades every month in over 50 countries. We provide access to a wide range of instruments including margined foreign exchange, CFD trading and, in the UK, spread betting.

We constantly look to improve the performance of our platforms and expand the range of services we provide. The result is that our customers benefit from innovative trading tools with transparent pricing, competitive spreads, and a high standard of customer support. Learn to trade and find out more at http://www.cityindex.co.uk/.

SOURCE City Index