I'm surrounded by girls.

I have three daughters aged 11, 13, and 15 and two young nieces who live close by. On Superbowl Sunday this year, all five were sprawled out around the living room to watch the game, clearly more interested in the commercials than the (sadly, lackluster) game.

Then a commercial immediately got their attention. The government was giving $1,000 to kids! The room erupted with excitement from all five girls.

But then came the fine print.

The money (“Trump Accounts”, as they're officially called) is only for children born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028. The deflation was instant. Five girls staring at me like I owed them an explanation.

They weren't upset because they wanted to spend the free money. They wanted to invest it. They loved the prospect of investing dollars of their own. 

Investing has always been part of the conversation in our house. I’m always happy to teach them about it. So I wasn't entirely surprised by their reaction. In fact, I was proud.

Because I know when they finally do get their hands on investable assets, they’ll make smart choices.

How do I know?

Women, straight up, outperform in the markets. 

I'm grateful that several of the top 15 investors in our firm are women (including the # 1 spot!). And yet — as is true across the M&A space — I've always believed there should be more. The participation gap has never made sense to me given what the data actually shows.

Because the data is striking.

A Warwick Business School study found women's portfolios beat the market by 1.94% annually (compared to 0.14% for men). That's a 1.8% gap, and it's generated by doing less. Behavioral research consistently shows women trade less, don’t succumb to overconfidence, and react more deliberately to market noise. Fewer trades, lower costs, better outcomes.

Does this surprise you?  It shouldn’t. Just look at the actuarial tables.

Men are responsible for the majority of fatal crashes. Women account for more of the minor ones. The difference isn't intelligence or capability, it's risk intensity. 

The same pattern shows up in brokerage accounts: women overindex as cool-headed, downside minded, and slower to react (especially during volatility).

The very traits private markets reward - patience, discipline, long-term focus - are underrepresented in the private markets. 

The participation gap is both puzzling and inefficient. And when you look at who consistently demonstrates those traits at scale, the data points in one direction: Women may be the ideal private market investor.

And at Wealth Stack, we believe inefficient markets deserve to be studied.  

This week we highlight Lisa Farris, a Los Angeles entrepreneur who took control of her finances after a bad 529 experience and found her edge in private deals. Her story echoes my own and many others – both male and female. Don't skip it.

This issue breaks down:

• Why behavioral finance data suggests women may be the ideal private market investor — and what's standing between them and the asset class.

• A full profile on Lisa Farris and how she found her edge in private markets.

• And a playbook that can help any investor identify deals the way Lisa has. 

Lisa is also our partner in the Women's Investor Study, the largest research effort we know of to map the state of women in private markets today. If you're a woman who's ever allocated to a private deal, or thought about it, please share your perspective. Follow this link to fill out the survey. 

Let's get into it,

— Walker Deibel
WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author of Buy Then Build
Founder, Build Wealth

SHIFT YOUR STACK

Investment Discipline Meets the Female Investor

For years, women investors have been described as conservative or “risk averse.”  But this label misses the mark entirely; context is everything. 

Public markets reward speed, liquidity, and constant action. Public markets trade on sentiment and trends, not fundamentals. Private markets, on the other hand, reward patience, underwriting discipline, and long-term conviction.

Behavioral finance data actually shows measurable evidence of how women’s investing behavior differs from men. It seems, when women invest, they tend to do so with more disciplined risk calibration and patience than their male counterparts. Perhaps the aversion is to public market noise? This, in turn, may translate to strong alignment with private markets. 

The number of women investing in private markets is still small and the reason for slower adoption may be a function of access, not suitability (or risk aversion). 

The Capital Shift Is Happening

By 2030, women are projected to control roughly $34 trillion in the U.S, up from roughly $10 trillion in 2020. And more than $113 trillion globally. Women currently hold 40% of total globally investable wealth and that figure is projected to grow at 8.2% CAGR, outpacing men by 3.2%.

This shift has been in place for many years and is only expected to accelerate.

In the United States, an estimated $124 trillion is expected to transfer between generations through 2048, with women positioned as primary inheritors of a substantial portion of those assets. 

Plus, Women influence or control over 80% of household financial decisions in the U.S. 

The fact is women will control more money. 

The question is where that capital will flow. 

The Behavioral Advantage 

When it comes to performance (in public markets at least) women routinely outperform men.  

A landmark study by Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean analyzing over 35,000 brokerage accounts found:

• Men trade 45% more frequently than women.

• Excess trading reduced men’s annual net returns by approximately 1.4%.

More recent studies find the performance gap has grown. While annual returns on investments for men were on average a marginal 0.14% above the performance of the FTSE 100, annual returns on the investment portfolios held by women were 1.94% above it. This means returns for women investing outperformed men by 1.8%.

Women, on average, trade less, exhibit lower overconfidence bias, and demonstrate controlled reaction to market events or noise.

In public markets, liquidity invites action. And action invites mistakes. The ability to click “sell” at any moment is not the safety net it seems. Private markets eliminate that temptation. Illiquidity is an edge.

When you commit capital to these markets like private equity, private credit, infrastructure, or direct business ownership, you’re underwriting a multi-year outcome. You can’t panic sell on a headline. You evaluate cash flows, sponsor alignment, downside protection, and long-term fundamentals.

Because illiquid private markets reward patience and discipline. They reward investors who don’t confuse volatility with opportunity.

The Barrier, if any

So if the behavioral alignment is this strong, why is participation in private markets still uneven?

Because private markets are not purely institutionalized the way we know public markets to be. They are relational.

Private markets remain relationship-driven ecosystems. Deal flow in private equity, private credit, and direct investments often moves through networks — alumni circles, operator communities, referral ecosystems, sponsor relationships. Access is frequently based on proximity rather than open market visibility.

Despite increasing wealth control, women remain underrepresented in private market participation and leadership.

• Women account for roughly 22% of professionals in alternative assets space 

• Startups with only female founders receive a small slice of VC funding, around 2% of total VC dollars in the U.S. annually. Even mixed-gender teams (at least one female founder) typically capture only ~14% of total deal value.

At the same time, women are:

• Controlling the majority of household financial decisions

• Are primary inheritors in the largest generational wealth transfer in history

• Expanding beyond traditional savings into investing and private markets.

• And are increasingly leading entrepreneurial initiatives

The capital base is shifting. The behavioral alignment exists. The remaining barrier is access.

If private markets remain network-driven and socially concentrated, participation will lag not because of investor capability, but because of structural bottlenecks. 

If you want the full breakdown — the data, behavioral research, structural analysis, and what it means for private capital allocation — read the full report HERE

This week, we also partnered with Lisa Farris of the Investor Collective, to see how female investors are thinking about private investing today.  If you have a few minutes, please take the survey.

CASE STUDY

The Trust Dividend

Lisa Farris is part of the small, but growing wave of women taking control in private markets, teaching others what she knows, and leaning into the traits that make her a savvy investor.  And she remembers the exact moment she decided to take that control. 

In 2022, something that was supposed to be safe proved it wasn’t – at exactly the wrong time. 

Lisa had left her daughter’s 529 plan alone because she trusted what many parents trust: as college approaches, the target date account would shift into safer territory. However, when her daughter was ready to use it, the account had dropped anyway. That was the day she moved all her money out of the brokerage that held it.

A marketer and an entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, Lisa is comfortable with risk. But, she says, only the kind she can understand. 

“I prefer risk where I understand how money is made, with clear value creation and performance. Public markets are important, but they’re environments where I have little influence, rely too much on market sentiment, and have no proximity to operators. I ultimately became less comfortable with the percentage of my investments in the market.” 

Instead, she looked for opportunities where she would have an edge, and some control over her financial future. 

“I'm either going to gain fluency in the stock market or I'm going to go where I feel safe and comfortable. And what I did know was real estate.”

Real estate as a natural entry point 

Lisa was ready to wade into something more tangible that aligned with what she wanted from her money and investments. She had secured a real estate license back in college, getting an early start to buying/selling property. Paired with her time as CMO at Realtor.com, she knew her background in real estate gave her an advantage. She understood markets, return projections, leverage and timelines. The story of how the money is made could stay tethered to something tangible. So she started with a market she could sanity-check and teams she could actually meet. And that’s exactly how it got started. 

“I went and I sat in their offices and I met with them one-on-one,” she explained. “I needed to understand the deal but I was more concerned with whether I could trust the team.”

In private markets, trust is more than a vibe. It’s a risk mitigant.

Lisa’s advice: find a good group where you have built in trust. This is the only way to lay a foundation that has the real potential to compound over time. 

“People either earn your confidence over time, or they spend it.”

The 5 Minutes that Sold Her

Everything that frustrated Lisa about her public market experience flipped after she secured her first real estate syndication deal. 

There she was in the operator’s office. Their CFO opened a spreadsheet and did something seemingly simple. He walked her through two available options. 

The first was private lending. A path with clean, steady returns. The second path was a syndication fund with more upside and more moving parts. The CFO didn’t hand-wave, or gloss over anything, or hide behind jargon. He mapped out the tradeoffs, put numbers beside them, and showed what five years could look like on either path.

The presentation took five minutes. In those five minutes she knew all she needed to feel she was moving in the right direction – about the deal, but also about the dealmaker.

He demonstrated respect by taking the time, talking honestly, and sharing every detail, including sending that spreadsheet to her afterwards.

That moment has since turned into a long term relationship made stronger through transparency and trust – even when a deal is running a bit off its stated course.

Investments never go exactly according to plan but with transparent communication from your sponsor or operator, you have the power to track progress and plan accordingly.

“The teams I invest with are very honest about what’s going on,” she said. “I don’t get that from the stock market.” 

Building a Network

As she continued to meet with investors, Lisa gravitated to women in the space. She found them prepared, disciplined, and thoughtful. They asked questions that cut to the downside and incentives. They shared mistakes openly. Trust came naturally.

So, she wondered, why aren’t there more women investing in the private markets?

As a marketer by training, Lisa’s instinct is to gather data to find out. 

This week, Lisa launched the Women’s Investor Study to take the pulse on this massive, yet underserved group of investors. 

In partnership with her local investing group, The Investor Collective and Wealth Stack Weekly, she’s on a mission to map the state of women in the private markets today. Her survey aims to be the largest of its kind. 

In addition, Lisa is sharing her advice to women early in their private investing journey: 

• Start with what you can evaluate: an asset class, a market, an industry you actually understand.

• Make the operator legible: ask for the model, the assumptions, the downside plan. Watch how they respond. Take the time you need to perform analysis.

• Treat transparency like a requirement, not a bonus. Ask for examples of their updates or reports.

• Above all, trust yourself. “Soft skills” are a core part of diligence, character matters in how someone handles your investment and conducts business. Put their character to the test with sharp questions and evaluate the quality and tone of their answers. 

If you want to help build better understandings of how women investors allocate in the private markets, please take the survey here.

THE PLAYBOOK

Lisa Farris’s 5 Filters to Apply Before Committing Capital

Stepping into private credit, real assets, or direct deals requires discipline. 

Lisa Farris shared with us the five points she uses each time she considers a deal. Whether you are jumping in as a first timer or already a veteran, this framework can help you evaluate private market opportunities confidently and methodically before allocation. 

1.Tangibility: What is supporting this investment?

Invest in what you can underwrite. That typically means opportunities backed by tangible assets like real estate, physical assets, infrastructure, or durable cash flow. What is the thing that will fundamentally drive value and how that value is supported? 

Ask yourself:

• What physical asset, contract, or recurring revenue stream supports this?

• If growth slows, what still holds value?

• Is this asset dependent on market sentiment?

2.Proven Operators: Who is driving the outcome?

In private markets, you are investing in people first. Having raised capital herself, Lisa evaluates operators as closely as the deal structure.

Ask yourself:

• Have they executed this strategy before?

• Is their capital meaningfully invested alongside yours?

• How transparent are they about risk and performance?

• How do they respond when things don’t go to plan?

Lisa’s advice: Prioritize operators with proven track records and proximity to the asset if possible. Raising capital for my prior startup taught me that I'm investing in people as much as the business. 

3.Downside Protection: What happens if I’m wrong?
Protect capital before pursuing upside. Lisa evaluates downside with as much rigor as potential returns.

Ask yourself:

• Where do I sit in the capital stack?

• What are the modeled downside scenarios?

• What assumptions would have to fail for capital to be impaired?

• How resilient is this through economic cycles?

Lisa’s advice: Invest in markets you understand and look for clarity on capital stack position, downside scenarios, and resilience across market conditions.

4.Alignment: Do the terms match the risk?
The opportunity itself is only half the equation. The terms of any deal define how risk and reward are shared with the business. Look at position, tax implications and treatment, ownership structure, and alignment of incentives.

Ask yourself:

• How is the manager compensated?

• Are incentives aligned over the life of the investment?

• What is the tax treatment?

• Who controls major decisions?

5.Defined Horizon: How and when does liquidity happen?
Illiquidity isn’t forever. It’s a tool that must be aligned with your broader portfolio strategy. The path to liquidity still has to be defined and agreed to. 

Ask yourself:

• Is there a defined exit strategy?

• Are there interim distributions?

• What milestones signal progress?

• What happens if the exit window shifts?

Lisa’s advice: Be intentional. Even in longer-term investments, I look for defined milestones, interim distributions, or measurable progress along the way.  

Private markets are relationship-driven and they can be opaque. These five filters bring risk and reward out into the open. Helping clarify assets, highlighting operators, downside risks, and time horizon. That’s real due diligence.

WEALTH STACK REBELLION

"I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier." — Oprah Winfrey

The largest untapped capital pool in private markets is already here. It manages households. It inherits trillions. It outperforms in public markets with fewer trades and steadier hands. And yet it remains underrepresented in private deals.

But the lesson this week isn't just about who's being left out. It's about what the rest of us should be learning from them.

Women outperform men by 1.8% annually. Not because of what they do, but because of what they don't. Fewer trades. Less overconfidence. Downside evaluated before upside. Conviction that doesn't flinch at a headline.

Those are the exact traits private markets reward. Patience, discipline, and long-term focus compound powerfully in private equity, private credit, real assets, and direct ownership where underwriting matters more than momentum, and conviction matters more than reaction speed.

So regardless of who you are: lean into discipline. Trade less. Trust your confidence more. Protect the downside first. Commit to a horizon you can actually hold.

The next shift in capital won't announce itself, it will intelligently compound.

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