Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Janet Yellen urges Congress to raise the debt ceiling, Greta Thunberg has no patience for climate slogans without action, and the investors most likely to ‘freak out’ during a downturn may not be who you think. Have a great Wednesday.
– Stock slide. When it comes to the stock market, men still invest and trade in greater numbers than women. But when there’s a downturn, who weathers it better?
The investors most likely to, scientifically speaking, “freak out” during a market crash are those very same investors who stereotypically dominate the field. According to a new study, married men over 45 who think of themselves as having “excellent investment experience” are most likely to “panic sell” during a downturn.
The research comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and “freak out” is their term.) The paper analyzed 600,000 brokerage accounts and defined a panic sale as “a plunge of 90% of a household account’s equity assets over the course of one month, of which 50% or more is due to trades.”
Stereotypes often peg women as “risk-averse” to explain why men are more likely to invest and trade, especially as retail brokerages like Robinhood have boomed in popularity. But what gets classified as “risk aversion” can sometimes just be smart, carefully considered decision-making—and that pays off when the market takes a dip.
Read more from the MIT study’s findings via Bloomberg here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Election day. In Japan's governing party election today, Fumio Kishida emerged as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and likely prime minister. But two women still made history with their campaigns. Conservative Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda, who has promoted gender equity, lost, but their candidacies influenced a runoff vote. New York Times
- In debt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is urging lawmakers to suspend or increase the federal debt limit. If Congress doesn't take action, Yellen warns, the Treasury will run out of cash by Oct. 18. Fortune
- Blah, blah, blah. The slogans politicians often invoke as they talk about climate change? Greta Thunberg hears them all the same way: "Blah, blah, blah." The activist said in a speech that "so-called leaders" say "words that sound great" but don't lead to action. Guardian
- Executive experience. Indra Nooyi, the former PepsiCo CEO, has a new book out this week: My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future. In this excerpt, Nooyi writes about how she learned to succeed as an executive by watching her mother at home. Vogue
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EY named Leslie Patterson EY Americas and U.S. diversity, equity, and inclusiveness leader. Paula Schmidlin joins Invoca as SVP, people and culture. Kathy Myhand was named VP of people at PKWARE. At Operator Collective, Toast CFO Elena Gomez joins the board of advisers while Leyla Seka will become chair of the board of advisors. Skillsoft hired Dell Technologies' Kristi Hummel as chief people officer. Former Impossible Foods chief communications officer Rachel Konrad joins the board of Next Gen Foods.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Survivor suit. Earlier this year, reporter Felicia Sonmez sued the Washington Post for discrimination over how the paper restricted her from covering issues related to sexual assault after she disclosed she was a sexual assault survivor. (The Post has declined to comment on the suit.) Sonmez's situation has stuck with other journalists who are survivors of assault and worry they could face similar hurdles or judgment at work. Vice
- Super decision. Workers at the U.K. supermarket chain Morrisons have been fighting for equal pay. Those who work in stores, who are mostly women, argue that their jobs are comparable to those of the male-dominated distribution center workforce. They won that argument this week, allowing the in-store workers to move forward with their gender-based equal pay claim. Financial Times
- The state of the CDU. Now that the German election is over, where does that leave Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union? The party is in "disarray" after its biggest loss since its post-World War II founding. New York Times
ON MY RADAR
JPMorgan invests $60 million in minority-led banks Bloomberg
Democrats debate duration, details of child tax credit extension WSJ
'The entire conversation needs to change:' Reproductive justice leaders on the fight for abortion access Elle
PARTING WORDS
"It incorporates so much more of my lived experience and my life and my aspirations and my hopes."
-Author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson on publishing her first book at 50. Her debut story collection and novella is My Monticello.
