Fund with woman’s touch beating market

Published Fri, Jan 9 20157:23 AM EST

Evelyn Cheng @in/evelyn-cheng-53b23624 @chengevelyn

Having more females in higher positions could help a company's stock, if the initial performance of Barclay's $27 million Women in Leadership ETN is any guide. Since its July launch, the fund is topping the S & P by about 1 percent. Not too shabby, considering the current poor track record of mutual funds whose managers pick stocks based on fundamentals. To be included in the fund, which trades under the ticker " WIL " for Women in Leadership, the company must have a female CEO and/or a board of at least 25 percent females. "I think it's something that Wall Street might want to pay attention to," said Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital and a former software engineer. Forrest said that as a woman, she "can see some differences in decision making" in both those fields. Read More The gender gap is still a big issue for start-ups "Instead of trying to swing for home runs, we're trying to get on base, get on base with good (stock) picks," Forrest said. "We're trying to pick for good strategy." The Harvard Business Review has repeatedly discussed the benefits of and challenges facing women in leadership. An article in December 2013 cited a study that found companies with more women on their boards pay less for acquisitions. Having a female chief financial officer may also protect a company from risky tax-dodging business , a study published by the American Accounting Association last month said. Replacing a male CFO with a female reduced the likelihood of a company adopting a risky tax shelter by 17.4 percent. Academic and anecdotal evidence aside, the 6-month-old WIL fund still needs to endure some growing pains before proving that female leaders really do bring in the money. It's "too short of a time horizon to see if (gains are) attributable to women in leadership," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. "Not a disparaging comment. I would say that about any niche fund." The fund does hold major S & P 500 names, with top constituents PepsiCo , Procter & Gamble , Wells Fargo , Pfizer , GE , Google , IBM , AT & T , Verizon and the agriculture biotechnology firm Monsanto . The most represented sectors are IT and consumer staples, while the least represented sectors are consumer discretionary and energy. Staples stocks have soared on the six-month collapse in gasoline prices, while energy stocks have struggled, which likely explains some of the fund's outperformance. Still, any strategy that can best the S & P 500 deserves a second look these days. Almost 90 percent of large cap mutual funds trailed their benchmarks last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. Katrina Lamb, head of investment strategy and research at wealth management firm MV Financial, noted that "stock price performance is attributable to many variables, only one of which is the composition of the executive and governance team." Read More Meet the most powerful woman in hedge funds "On the other hand," she said, "it is nice to know that there are 80-plus large companies out there that fit the criteria!" Reuters contributed to this report. Disclaimer

CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi speaks at the official opening of a PepsiCo bottling plant in Domodedovo, near Moscow, on July 8, 2009.

Natalia Kolesnikova | AFP | Getty Images

Having more females in higher positions could help a company's stock, if the initial performance of Barclay's $27 million Women in Leadership ETN is any guide.

Since its July launch, the fund is topping the by about 1 percent. Not too shabby, considering the current poor track record of mutual funds whose managers pick stocks based on fundamentals.