A Black Woman’s Guide To Investing in the Stock Market
According to the data, Black people invest in the stock market at a significantly lower rate than white people. A whopping 59% of Black women are NOT investing in anything, not the stock market, not real estate, not mutual funds, nothing. About 90% of stocks are owned by white people. NINETY PERCENT. That’s basically like every single stock is owned by a white person and most black folks ain’t invested in anything at all.
Black people are seriously lagging behind and I was no exception. Yes, I have a 401K and was contributing to my company’s match. And yes, my company was investing that 401K in the stock market. But any money I had left over was just sitting in my savings account. I had no idea how to invest in the stock market at all. But, like a lot of people during the pandemic, I took some time to learn a little more about money and discovered that if I just keep my money in a savings account I’m basically losing it.
I’m not a financial guru by any means. But what I’d surmised after doing a deep dive on Tim Denning’s Medium articles, was that keeping my money in a savings account alone, even a high yield savings account, would mean that I was only earning a small interest rate on that money and that rate of interest was well below the rate of inflation. If you’re asking yourself, what is inflation? Well, I didn’t…
