More than one-third of online moderate to heavy traders will be women, according to the 2001 Women Investors Special Report released today by J.D. Power and Associates.

The report focuses on online and full-service trading trends of women. “Many strategies used to encourage investment activity in the past were geared toward men and did not highlight the interests of women investors,” said Nancy Salk, director of investment services at J.D. Power and Associates.

“Now, women have become more independent economically and are investing directly for themselves and for their families. Brokerage firms should take notice of this when developing marketing strategies based on the intentions of women investors.”

Recommendations of friends, family and colleagues are more important to women investors than to men, according to the study. “Word of mouth” is the No. 1 reason women cite when choosing a primary online brokerage firm.

Women are more likely than men to give their brokerage firms extremely high satisfaction ratings, specifically for investing tools and information resources. Women who invest online were more interested than men in a whole range of information and investing tools, including news and price alerts, institutional research and stock or fund screening tools.

Women are also more likely to make a larger percentage of advised trades, where men tend to make a larger percentage of self-directed trades (without the assistance of a broker).

Not surprisingly, women prefer personal contact with their broker. They tend to call or visit their full-service brokerage firm while men are more likely to go to the firm’s Web site to obtain information.

As aggregation becomes more accessible, women are more likely to see it as an opportunity for a broker to give advice designed to help strategize their entire portfolio. This indicates that it is critical for firms to incorporate consulting into aggregation, especially with women investors, since they place a large focus on personal, information-based support.