Teen who is interested in investing app but no real money yet, wants to learn-recommendations?
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Anonymous
| How best can I support my teen who wants to invest but no money? Is there an app where he can intro and pretend how to invest? |
Anonymous
| They can use Stockpile - you can trade tiny little bits of stocks, so can play with even $100. We gave our son $100 to start about 4 years ago. He’s put birthday money in there and now has $2,000 and has a good time researching what to buy and sell. |
Anonymous
| I'd get him a book, maybe Bogleheads guide to investing. Definitely stay away from apps or any kind of active trading. |
Anonymous
| He needs to learn first. No apps. |
Anonymous
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I'd be really really careful. Remember that 20 year old who committed suicide because he thought he owed 700,000. If he reads Wall Street Bets on Reddit that is a big red flag too.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/business/robinhood-lawsuit-suicide-settlement/index.html What about doing pretend stocks like we did in high school economics (some websites let you put in pretend investments and track them). |
Anonymous
I teach HS math. I have boys in Algebra who can't multiply 3 times 4 but I catch them on their laptops watching trading videos or looking at stock charts instead of doing their work in class. The irony is they can't even remotely quantify wins or losses because their math is so bad (heard one bragging the other day to a friend about how much money he could make trading xyz and if his inputs were correct he was off by a couple of orders of magnitude). So tempted to tell them they're prime examples of what Wall Street calls the "dumb money" that it fleeces on a regular basis, but wouldn't want them to go home to mommy and daddy saying the teacher called them dumb. |
Anonymous
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I think Schwab still has a deal where they give you $100 worth of free stocks for opening a training account as long as you put at least $50 in.
They also allow you to trade fractional stocks. So if all you can afford is 10% of a stock, that’s still an option for you and you can still get the experience of seeing if there are wins or losses My kids have small accounts and sometimes they have ideas about trades and sometimes I do and we all just play with it but it’s just a tiny amount of money. In our case, the kids have medical issues and we often trade medical stocks that are related to their diagnoses and where they know a lot about the products, what’s coming to market, product quality, etc. |
Anonymous
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Oops forgot the link, this is an article about the Schwab accounts
https://pressroom.aboutschwab.com/press-releases/press-release/2021/Introducing-Schwab-Starter-Kit--Designed-to-Support-First-Time-Investors/default.aspx |
Anonymous
| Investing isn't for fun. Buy low fee index funds and hold them for 40-50 years. |
Anonymous
| Outschool sometimes has little classes on investing. My kid did a mock investment contest there years ago where the fake investing account they use looks similar to an online broker. It was just for stocks. I helped some. It's a shame it wasn't real money because we did well. |
Anonymous
+1 Encouraging kids to trade stocks is the worst thing you can do. This is one of the ways Wall Street makes lots of money. They ultimately win and you end up losing. It takes a person with a big ego to think they can beat the big boys. |
Anonymous
Do you really mean 'no money' or you have $500? If you are a parent, why don't you have an account? You should already have your favorite investment bank and know how to buy and sell. Personal finance is like any other skill you pass down to your kids. Here's how you can pretend invest: Imagine they have $5k, identify up to 5 stocks they want to buy and the price they think would be good, the 'buy them'. Check how much money they have two weeks from now. All this can be done with calculator, pen, and pencil looking up the prices. $5k/$240 T stock, would give you ca 20 shares, right. Now, it the T price goes down to $220, your account would show $4400. Seems like you lost $600. You haven't lost because you didn't sell. Next month, T stock can be $260, you just made 20 shares x $20=$400. Everyone has their favorite investment app/bank. Mine is Robinhood. You cannot open it for the kid. It's for 18+. You should learn first on RH while the kid does it on paper. Do it inside of Roth if you are eligible. Do your homework when it comes to Roth. Once the kid is 18, you are ready to guide them. Youtube, AI, google are your friends. Hands on is still the best. I learn something every day. |
Anonymous
I disagree. That's a very middle class/boomer mindset. Investing is a habit, and can become a skill, that should be encouraged. |
Anonymous
That's not true. That's why you have you have to get in and stay in. You also don't have to beat them, but see what they are doing. This is all about learning. You sit in your ETFs while big boys are collecting fees. Yes, there are people who cannot handle stocks. They also should stay away from casinos, drugs, and shopping among other things. |
Anonymous
There isn't a single study that shows you can beat the market. Not only that, but you are wasting your time and energy. Yeah, that expense ratio of .04 is really killing me lol |