'Young Ins' Interested In Investing
By Randy Wong
RANDY WONG analyses the reasons why investing is picking up traction as an income source amongst young individuals.
Glenn Koh Zhi Kai, 19, is a newbie investor.
(Photo courtesy of Glenn Koh Zhi Kai)
In our little red dot, a young 19-year-old Singaporean male rises to his morning alarm. The glare of the phone screen slightly illuminates his dark room. Navigating to the United States (US) financial market, he begins his day with investing.
Mr Glenn Koh Zhi Kai, 19, a student in Republic Polytechnic, has invested approximately $3,000 in the past two years. Mainly focusing on cryptocurrency and US market firms, he invests in numerous companies such as Bitcoin and NRX Pharmaceuticals with Binance SG and Tiger Brokers respectively.
“If not for school, I would probably be working at a part-time job to get more capital for investing,” says Mr Koh. To compensate for his limited funds, he diligently reads online financial news such as The Business Times to gauge the standing of the companies he has invested in. “I need to always be up to date on the status of the companies I have invested in to avoid as many losses as possible.”
He was introduced to the concept of investing when he was 18. He desired a way to make income without attaining a part-time job. Fortunately for him, a huge scandal in the US financial market opened a gateway for him to the wonders and possibilities of investing.
According to globelivemedia.com, “GameStop was heading for bankruptcy, and several funds firms such as Melvin Capital bet on it to make a profit by short selling.” However, Reddit users wanted to support GameStop and encouraged lots of people to buy the company’s shares to raise its value.
“This GameStop scandal has influenced many young individuals into picking up investing due to Reddit being a popular social media website for Generation Zs and Millennials,” said Mr Koh.
In the past decade, the most prominent video sharing platform on the internet has been YouTube. Boasting a user count comparable to a continent’s total population, the platform lets users freely upload videos on almost anything. Mr Kelvin Tan, 34, has a YouTube channel called Kelvin Learns Investing and has been sharing financial and investing information catered towards beginners since December 2019.
Boasting an investing experience of five long years, Mr Tan hopes to bring “whatever financial knowledge that he knows, so that he can help others improve their personal finance”. On the channel, he mainly talks about long-term investing, trading and cryptocurrency.
“I think investing has been unpopular all along because we always hear stories about people losing money. However, it is about to change soon as low-cost brokers are making investing more affordable, and more blogs and videos are encouraging it,” said Mr Tan when questioned on the rise of young investors.
For newbie investors, he states that the most important tip is to “not focus on short-term gain, but to learn how to buy and hold stock from favourable companies”.
Oh Kai Wen using Solana, a blockchain for investing purposes.
(Photo courtesy of Oh Kai Wen)
​Mr Oh Kai Wen, 19, a Ngee Ann Polytechnic science student, has invested around $5,000. In 2017, Mr Oh’s first exposure to investing came when one of his secondary school classmates started moving profits from Carousell listings into investments. “He wanted to retire early as he did not want to study hard,” Mr Oh says.
​Initially, Mr Oh was disinterested in the process of investing. However, after making profit by selling gaming accounts, he realised that investing was a method to “snowball this profit into greater heights”. Not long after, he invested his funds into the Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) with the help of his uncle, who was a day trader.
​As of writing this article, Mr Oh has 80 per cent of his capital in bonds. He says, “Bonds are more secure than stocks during COVID-19 times because they are harder to topple or lose out on with the involvement of the government.”
​Investing will never be risk-free as the markets are ever-changing. The value of one’s stocks and bonds may plummet into the red or soar sky-high into the greens. However it may be, Mr Koh says, “One must hold on and weather the storm for the bright future ahead.” Possessing numerous stocks into red, he plans to hold them until the day he can make a profit once again.
