When Jasper Gould of Brooklyn, New York, was in seventh grade, he started wondering what Wall Street was all about.
He googled it, read some analysis and a book called “The Intelligent Investor,” and rounded up a few thousand dollars from gifts, family members, some work at home and at a summer camp.
Then, through a custodial investment account managed by his dad, he bought some stocks.
“As someone who played video games, I understood what Nvidia was at a very surface level, so that excited me,” Gould explained.
He bought Intel, Microsoft, and Amazon too.
“I remember checking my portfolio about a year after, probably eighth grade, and I think it was up 66% that year, which was, you know, pretty significantly strong,” he said.
He and a couple of hundred teens interested in learning about investing research and pitch stocks, invest donated contributions in those stocks, and then donate returns.
“We can make an impact on the world, and we can still do the thing that we're really interested in,” he said.
As for his personal portfolio, Gould said by the time he’s in his early 20s, it could potentially be a “life-altering sum of money.”
“It’s very possible that, you know, the money I've made from profiting off of artificial intelligence and its advancement in the stock market could, in fact, bail me out from any career troubles down the line that result from artificial intelligence and its invention,” he said.
Such financial uncertainty is one of the reasons why Jonathan Craig, head of retail investing at Charles Schwab (full disclosure, a Marketplace underwriter) thinks teens are interested in the markets.
”This generation recognizes that they're growing up in an environment where home ownership is incredibly expensive. Education is expensive. There's a little bit of job uncertainty,” Craig said. “And I think there's a recognition that if financial independence is important, investing is going to have to be a big part of it.”
