Investing as a 16 Y.O High Schooler in GME Stock 📈🚀
On Sept. 15 of 2019 when I was 14 years of age, I decided fully committed to learning about the wonderful stock market!!
I am now 16 years old and it has been a whole journey this year in the stock market. Many millionaires have been made and the markets are looking as bullish as ever.
Before I start talking about what investing as a 16-year-old is like now, I would like to first describe my journey to get up to this point and what got me hooked.
The Beginning
Prior, people like Timothy Sikes, Alex Becker, and Ricky Gutierrez commissioned Ads on Youtube to promote their stock courses or just other similar services.
Even though I had already been exposed to stocks, I never understood them and never truly tried to learn what they were.
Fast forward to my first day in 9th grade, a business club that I had joined mandated that each participant participates in a virtual stock market challenge called SMG (Stock Market Game).
The purpose of this game was to see how much we could beat the S&P 500 Index’s return over the same amount of time. So basically the goal was just to make as much money as possible.
Digging deeper into what stocks are, watching some YouTubers explaining basic concepts, I was immediately hooked.
With prior exposure from the advertisements mentioned before, knowing that all you had to do was buy low and sell higher 5 minutes later further intrigued me.
Thus, my journey through the rabbit hole of stocks began!
Paper Trading📈📉: 2019
Just like a flight simulation, the SMG Tournament would allow us 100k in initial capital to invest in the markets.
We would use their platform to interact with all the tickers available in the US Exchange. We were also allowed to trade all three of the asset classes being mutual funds, bonds, and regular stock.
The competition would last until December 18th giving us roughly 3 months to make as much filthy money as possible.
Looking back now I did many things wrong, once the competition started I immediately started buying all the blue-chip and high volume stocks because I thought that they would go up the next day 🚀🚀🚀
I thought that these companies had the best potential to skyrocket since they made money.
I was more than wrong not only did these stocks not rocket to the moon, they actually went down in value 📉 📉 😔 😭
I was absolutely destroyed, I thought there was nothing left and that it would only be downhill from there.
My shares were sold and I started to try and chase losses by shorting the market. Each and every single stock that I had sold was shorted the very next second and I thought I was on top of the world 🌎 ⛳️
Short high, cover low right? When it got to the floor sell and then buy back in and then when it dips sell and rinse and repeat right?
Again I was utterly destroyed, a few moments later the stock began to pick up momentum and I was left utterly dumbfounded 😬 🤕 😱
This cycle happened multiple times where I kept trying to chase losses and not using an actual assimilated strategy that would let me take advantage of the markets.
I QUIT ❌
Seeing so many people earning money and watching plays that I had considered moon completely crushed any more determination I had left to complete the tournament.
I left my account, down 10k with only a few stocks that hadn’t been yet liquidated.
However, I also decided to put some real money into some stocks (EV, hydrogen energy, etc.) that would eventually do really well in the future. Putting that money in and coming back later up 300% was the goal.
That marked the end of my investing….. for now 🎬
The Cycle Continues 📈📈: SMG 2020
The pandemic had been raging on and the stock market was ripping like it never had before.
The pandemic offered an opportunity for many investors to buy in at a big discount. Big names like Tesla, Apple, AMD all rocketed as the market became to trend up bullishly.
This prompted my interest and I decided to buy back into the markets after the big dip and the steady recovery. Interest rates had been lowered and many businesses started to recover.
Now in the 10th grade, I came in with a different mindset to investing. I did all my research and analyzed the current markets. I went in with a dedicated strategy and disciplined myself through the process.
Though everything didn’t go perfect, it had gone significantly better than the year before. I was less emotional and more confident in the plays that I had performed.
My partner and I ended 12th in California and 14th out of the entire world competing in the competition.
This taught me that my work actually made a difference. The efforts that I made had paid off and showed the expected results.
The After
Up until now because the stock market had been ripping, my initial investments had also rocketed in price.
Money that I had put in had almost had 5x and some had doubled.
I decided to learn more about stocks during this time and broaden my knowledge of the overall market.
I learned different terms, meanings, fundamentals on technical analysis, financial analysis, etc.
Then I discovered options 🤯
The Now
Options intrigued me as I loved the idea of taking on a bit of extra risk for that extra reward.
I was able to basically own 100 shares of the underlying stock through a contract, but at the same time pay significantly less than actually owning 100 shares of the underlying asset.
I am now 16 years old as of Jan. and I am continuing to invest in the stock market and am burning with even more passion than I’ve had in the past year.
I am continuing to trade options, buy into stocks, exit old positions, and adapting to the markets.
Though the journey won’t be easy, setting my sights on a vision and following up on the plan will continue to be my focus. Not straying away and impulsively making decisions will be my main focus for 2021.
Being cool, calm, and calculated will be essential to coming out net-positive this year.
As 2021 has already come to a fire start with GME and the recent retail investor “short squeeze” I have no doubt in my mind that this new attention will impact the markets for years to come.
I didn’t actually invest in GME (clickbait 😉)… but I did in -> AMC 🚀🚀🚀
That’s all I have for today!
Thank you and may our portfolios be blessed with those nice golden tendies!!
THANKS FOR READING⚡️
I will be writing more about my Instagram experience, financial freedom, and whatever I find interesting. Please let me know in the comments on how I can improve my writing, and if you enjoyed please consider smashing that follow button!!
— Tristian Xu
