Meet the teenagers investing their after-school job money in the stock market — and winning big
The market might be turbulent, but these Zoomers are in for the long haul.
More and more young people are getting into the market earlier, with help from social media, artificial intelligence and, yes, their parents via custodial accounts.
According to the Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey of 2024, the average Gen Z investor got into the market at just 19 years old — compared with 25 for Millennials, 32 for Gen X and 35 for Boomers.
But experts warn that some Zoomers, sucked in by influencers and promises to get-rich-quick on TikTok and Instagram, are investing in sketchy crypto coins and meme stocks without doing their research.
“If you’re a young investor and you have $100 or $500 or $1000 that you don’t care what happens to, go ahead and buy cryptocurrency and close your eyes and see what happens, but [my advice is] never buy anything you can’t reach out and touch,” said Brian Belski, Chief Investment Strategist of BMO Capital Markets.
His suggestion to young investors: “Buy things that you know, whether it’s Lulu Lemon or Netflix or Alphabet. Always invest in things that you’re using.”
The Post spoke to five precocious and well-researched investors about their experiences:
Ryan Sorrell: ‘I use ChatGPT to help me invest’
Ryan Sorrell was only 8 years old when he made his first investment in Bitcoin, after his dad taught him about crypto.
“I understood part of it, but I ultimately did more research,” Sorrell, now 15, told The Post.
Now that he has his own money from bussing tables at a retirement home, he’s doubling down.
For the past year, the teen has put his entire paycheck — about $800 a month during the summer — into the market on CashApp. He’s mostly invested in Bitcoin and MicroStrategy.
“This summer I want to make as much money as I can to invest, and I want to set myself up with a portfolio that pays high dividends so I can keep reinvesting in the future,” Sorrell said.
So far, the 15-year-old has $6,000 in Bitcoin, $3,500 of which is profit. He has made another $337 in the stock market.
He spends about an hour each day researching the market, teaching himself primarily with AI tools like ChatGPT.
“It helps me a lot to just run through scenarios, to see where I’d be if I did that in, like, 10 years’ time,” he said. “You can just ask whatever you want and quickly deepen your understanding.”
Sorrell says investing early has changed his relationship to money.
“I’m more disciplined with how I spend my money because I’m putting it in the market and making a return instead of just losing it for, like, a pair of shoes or something,” he said. “It’s really helped me focus on my future and what I want to do with my life.”
Sophia Castiblanco: ‘Girls need to be encouraged to get into the market’
Sophia Castiblanco began investing at age 14 when she started making money from her toy review channel on YouTube.
“It was my parents who first encouraged me to get into investing because they were worried that, making such a large amount of money at a young age, I might spend it all on shopping or hanging out with my friends,” said Castiblanco, now 18 and a freshman in college. (She declined to name her school for privacy concerns.)
After a couple months of research and some help from her dad, the Bloomington, Illinois, native invested in Vanguard and Berkshire Hathaway and some of her favorite companies, like Tesla, Apple and Amazon.
At first, she was putting in $300 a month. Now, as she rakes in money as lifestyle content creator on Instagram and TikTok, she’s putting in $3,000.
Her most recent big investment was Nvidia, and she hopes her profits can help her buy an investment real estate property in the next year for passive rental income.
Over the past month, as the market was rocked by tariffs and her returns were cut from 38% to 10%, she poured even more money in: “I think it’s a great time to put money into the market. I feel like it’s a really good opportunity.”
Castiblanco also wishes more young people would brush up on their financial knowledge.
“I wish more of Gen Z, especially girls, would get into investing,” she told The Post. “It would be so beneficial if schools had a finance class at a young age so that students actually develop some more financial literacy.”
Perrin Myerson: ‘I invested money from working at Taco Bell’
Perrin Myerson became interested in investing at age 14, when he learned about the WallStreetBets community on Reddit.
“I thought they were morons, but they also seemed kind of funny,” said Myerson, now a 22-year-old senior studying computer science at Duke.
The Seattle native opened up a practice account as a ninth-grader, with the help of his father.
“My dad was pretty instrumental,” Myerson said. “He didn’t really trade, but I was interested in it and he was really nice and validating.”
He started investing more when he got his first job at age 16 — buying Microsoft and Amazon stocks, and he was “like crazy early” on software company Palantir.
“I didn’t have a ton of money growing up, so I was working at Taco Bell, and almost all my paychecks I was just throwing straight into RobinHood,” Myerson recalled.
While working in fast food, Myerson launched his own startup, creating a dynamic pricing software for restaurants.
He’s poured profits from his startup — “well over six figures” — in the market and made a 51% return over the past year.
“Too many people my age are looking for get-rich-quick schemes [like drop shipping retail schemes], and it’s really easy to sell those on TikTok, Instagram and X,” he said.
Isaiah Jones: ‘Trading was nerdy at first, but now it’s mainstream’
When high school junior Isaiah Jones started trading last year, it was considered “nerdy” by his classmates — but, now, the Richmond, Virginia teen says it’s totally mainstream.
“I’ve noticed this year trading has gotten a lot bigger,” he told The Post. “Like, I’m walking down the street and I see people looking at their crypto wallets.”
The 16-year-old started trading because some friends were. His dad helped him open a Robinhood custodial account to invest money made from lawn mowing and painting houses over the summer.
Jones owns shares of Apple and Nvidia and invested in Palantir, now valued at $94, when it was just $27 a share. He reads newspaper business sections every day and also uses X to research the market.
He’s contemplating investing in real estate development company Howard Hughes Holdings because he’s “sometimes a fan of Bill Ackman,” whose hedge fund bought a big position in them.
But overall, Jones found crypto is much easier to access as a teen. His favorite cryptocurrency is Ethereum, and his biggest profit is from Solana. Jones is also a fan of meme coins like Brett. He’s put $300 into crypto and now has $837.
“When you’re trading stocks under 18, you have to do everything with your parents’ permission, which is kind of hard, but crypto is so unregulated that I’ve been able to trade on my own,” he said. “I trade a lot more in crypto just because I’ve made more money in that.”
