Financier №1 (41) 2026

Participants in financial markets often make investment decisions based on the most popular and sometimes fleeting ideas. Women’s analytical abilities and their view of the market have long been less in demand than men’s. Meanwhile, it is often the female approach that makes it possible to more accurately identify fundamental risks and growth constraints ignored by the majority in the market. This was demonstrated by the experience of crises and technological shifts.

Dissenting Opinion

For decades, finance was a field in which female participation was viewed with scepticism and bias. This is confirmed by research published in Management Science. It shows that capital inflows into funds managed by women between 1992 and 2009 were approximately 11–12 % lower than into comparable funds led by men. As a result, the returns of “women’s” funds were about one‑third lower.

However, it was often female analysts who identified risks that most male colleagues chose to ignore. A telling example is the case of Meredith Whitney, a former analyst at Oppenheimer, who in October 2007 publicly warned of a systemic crisis in US banks. At a time when market consensus remained largely optimistic, she noted that Citigroup’s (С) dividends exceeded its profits at the time. Her accurate forecast of a sharp deterioration in the bank’s position - whose shares fell 97 % by early 2009 - earned Whitney the reputation of the “Oracle of Wall Street”.

A study published in the Journal of Corporate Finance* shows that forecasts by female financial analysts are often more accurate than those made by men, but the market reacts to them more slowly and weakly due to gender biases

*A prominent international publication dedicated to corporate finance

Research shows that investment strategies and analytical methods used by women in financial markets differ from those used by men. Due to high barriers to entry in the profession, female analysts undergo stricter selection, resulting in only those with above average forecasting skills remaining in the industry. 

According to a study published in Accounting Research, the average accuracy of stock direction forecasts by women exceeds the male figure by 7.85 %. Moreover, female forecasts are on average bolder relative to the consensus, yet statistically more accurate, and the market’s reaction to their revisions is stronger and more sustained over time - despite receiving less media attention. Because of this, the distinct female perspective is always of interest to investors who like to dig into the details.

Oracle of Wall Street

One of the most striking and well‑known current female views on the future is presented in a recent report by Mary Meeker - a legendary venture investor and former Wall Street analyst. She is called the “Queen of the Internet” for her accurate forecasts of long‑term technological trends.

The report is Meeker’s first major work in six years and also her most in‑depth and focused study. It systematically examines not only the technological evolution driven by artificial intelligence, but also the related infrastructure changes, their impact on the economy, and the growing role of advanced technologies in global competition.

Data obtained by Meeker demonstrates an unprecedented acceleration in the adoption of internet solutions: WhatsApp reached an audience of 100 million in about three and a half years; TikTok reached the same milestone in nine months; ChatGPT acquired 100 million users in just two months. The analyst identified similar dynamics in internet usage. Google needed 11 years for its annual search queries to reach 365 billion, while ChatGPT reached a comparable level of search queries in less than two years.

Mary Meeker has also found similar trends in companies’ investment strategies. By the end of 2024, the six largest US tech giants had increased their investments in AI by 63 % year‑on‑year - to about $212 billion. In early 2025, the number of developers in key chipmaker ecosystems approached 6 million. What matters here is not just the scale but also the nature of innovation diffusion: AI is being adopted simultaneously around the world, not in stages.

Just three years after launch, the share of users of large language models (LLMs) reached 90 % outside the US, whereas the internet itself took nearly a quarter‑century to achieve such expansion. Taken together, these factors suggest that the emergence of AI should be seen not as another technological cycle but as a fundamental and systemic transformation of the global economy.

Meeker suggests that in the next 5–10 years, AI will cease to be a tool exclusively for companies and will become a key part of infrastructure for entire nations. In her view, by 2030, AI systems will be able to write code, make logical decisions, communicate in multiple languages, and handle tasks in customer service, sales, and operational processes.

Mary Meeker expects that part of scientific work will be delegated to algorithms by the middle of the next decade

Bubble: Early Diagnosis

Liz Ann Sonders is the Chief Investment Strategist for Charles Schwab. She assesses the impact of technological factors on stock prices and analyses the macro environment.

In her latest forecast for the US stock market, Sonders emphasises that the current economic cycle is characterised more by internal instability than mere uncertainty. This becomes an important backdrop for identifying investment risks and opportunities. According to the analyst, instability manifests itself in ambiguous economic signals: inflation hovering near 3 % and pressure from import tariffs.
In her forecast, Sonders points to the disproportionate influence of a narrow group of technology companies on the stock market. According to her calculations, the “Magnificent Seven” - Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA) - account for about 40 % of the S&P 500’s capitalisation and 25 % of its profits, raising questions about market stability. Volatility has recently been 20 % above the average level, and growth leaders are changing too frequently. Investors should diversify their holdings and not limit themselves to the technology sector.

In the academic paper “AI: Stairway to Heaven or Heartbreaker?”, which examines artificial intelligence, Liz Sonders and Kevin Gordon confirm Mary Meeker’s theses. The authors agree that under a positive scenario, AI solutions will become a new driver of technological innovation, much like the internet in the 1990s.

At the same time, Sonders and Gordon emphasise the dual nature of AI as an investment story. They see not only potential but also significant risks linked to investor hype and inflated stock valuations. Many companies developing AI are trading at multiples twice historical levels. This threatens a bubble, as market expectations - as before the dot‑com crisis - are outpacing actual profits. In her article, Sonders cites data from an MIT report showing that widespread adoption of AI does not guarantee revenue growth. Up to 95 % of organisations achieve zero return on investment (ROI) from implementing generative AI (GenAI), despite actively using tools like ChatGPT and Copilot. Sonders’ forecasts have become a filter against hype for investors. Unlike most analysts who focus on the prospects of the “Magnificent Seven”, Sonders persistently urges portfolio diversification.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The methods of female analysts Mary Meeker and Liz Sonders overlap in many ways: instead of trying to “catch the wave”, they focus on the quality of signals, the sustainability of business models, and risk assessment. This is extremely important because today’s technological progress outpaces its financial monetisation.

Mary Meeker and Liz Sonders are among the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the US financial sector, according to Barron’s**

**Professional magazine for investors 

However, the opinions of these two analysts also have significant differences. While Meeker speaks of a systemic shift comparable in scale to the advent of the internet, Sonders warns of the risk of overvaluation, capital concentration, and a repeat of the dot‑com era*** scenarios. The former describes what is changing at the infrastructure and economic levels, while the latter points out how the market might misjudge the speed and depth of these changes. The experts’ positions agree on one key point: the technological revolution does not cancel out investment discipline.

***The dot-com era was the period from the mid-1990s to 2000, when investors poured money into internet companies, expecting the internet to completely transform the economy. This resulted in a bubble that suddenly burst

In an era of AI hype and tariff wars, the female perspective comes to the fore - not as “footnotes”, but as a strategic compass for investors. This guide helps focus on the key trend, avoid illusions, and keep risk under control. After all, markets evolve not only through technological progress but also thanks to those who can separate the essential from the trivial.