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Kids these days Young and in Love -- with MoneyBy Rick Horowitz You know what's wrong with this country today? Neither do I, but here's as good a place to start as any: teen investors. You heard me, pal: teen investors. Boys and girls spending their adolescence -- those fun-and-frenzy-filled formative years -- playing the stock market! I had no idea this was going on. That's why newspapers were invented, to tell you what else you should be worrying about. "Teenagers show growing interest in Wall Street," the headline said. You could have knocked me over with a no-load mutual -- if I had any idea what a no-load mutual was. They're all over the place, according to the story. (Not no-load mutuals -- teen investors.) Thousands and thousands of kids whose idea of a good time is checking out their coolest stocks' latest moves. They join high school stock clubs. (Attendance is "bulging," the story says.) They play stock-market games on the Internet. And they spend real money on real stocks in the real world. Why aren't these kids hanging out on street corners the way they're supposed to? Why aren't they harassing some old person in a mall? Can't they join a gang? Officially, some adult has to be in charge of teens' trading accounts, but more and more, the story suggests, it's Junior and Missy who are calling the shots and loving the action. They're learning the value of a dollar: They're learning it's not nearly as valuable as ten dollars, or a hundred, or a thousand, or... Here's a high school junior, your ostensibly increasingly typical 16-year-old male. "Just about every day," he says, he works the numbers on his computer -- America Online for stock quotes, then over to the daily dose of analyst's advice. He won't spill specifics, but: "My earnings have about doubled," he says. Wouldn't you like him punch him out? And there's even more of him to love. This particular mover-in-the-making doesn't get all his hot info from the Internet, not at all. For instance? For instance: "He heard from a friend at school that Abercrombie & Fitch was going to report unusually high earnings, so he did what he usually does when he gets a tip: called his dad at work and asked to buy a few shares." I'm trying to figure something out here. I'm trying to figure out just how likely it would have been, at any time during my own teenage years, for me to hear from a friend that Abercrombie & Fitch, or any other company, was going to report unusually high earnings. Or unusually low earnings. Or any kind of earnings at all. In fact, I'm trying to imagine some friend of mine back then -- or any one I ever knew -- sidling up to me in the schoolyard with even the tiniest scrap of investment advice. Impossible. Totally and completely impossible. But that was then and this is -- Appalling. And here's another one: a high school senior, a 17-year-old female. Mom and Dad set up her investment portfolio with inheritance money way back in eighth grade, she says. She likes reinvesting the dividends in different stocks. (She likes reinvesting dividends -- what more do you need to know?) "I have to get my parents' signature and stuff," she says, "but I make the suggestions." Her portfolio used to be worth $9,000. Now, she figures, it's worth about $23,000. You think I'm jealous? You think that's what this is all about? Of course I'm jealous! But that's beside the point. I'm worried for my nation. I ask you, what fate awaits our land when the youth of America has taken up these bizarre pursuits? Whatever happened to good, clean (or even not-so-clean), highly unprofitable teenage fun? I had my go at the Wall Street game, you know. I had my fling with teenage fortune. When I turned 13, I received a single share of stock from an uncle who thought it would get me interested in financial matters. A few years later, my share of stock split. Then I had two shares. I still do. My dividend is about four dollars a year. I like to reinvest it in lunch. Posted
3/30/99. Invest in quality columns -- tell your friends
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