Meet the teen investors building a path to the new American dream

MW Meet the teen investors building a path to the new American dream

By Venessa Wong

As more kids invest, the new 'Trump accounts' are poised to make it even easier

Many old ways of achieving the American dream seem out of reach, "but if you still want to get there, maybe there are some new approaches," said Matt Carmichael, a senior vice president at Ipsos.

In middle school, Adam Erlichson asked his parents to help him invest $100 he was gifted during the holidays. His parents had instilled a habit of saving money, and a family friend who works in finance had begun teaching him about the benefits of investing early.

His parents obliged, opening a brokerage account for him. Then, at the age of 12, "I started playing around with it," Erlichson said.

The preteen initially bought shares of Starbucks $(SBUX)$ and Nike $(NKE)$, brands he recognized.

"Of course, as time grew, I would diversify," he told MarketWatch. Erlichson began following business news. When Americans started traveling again after the pandemic, he bought shares of United Airlines $(UAL)$.

Today, Erlichson is a 17-year-old high-school senior in New Jersey, and his portfolio has grown a total of 18% over the last three years. He is now looking into investing the income he earns from his car-detailing business as well as his job at a smoothie shop into index funds, such as the Fidelity 500 Index Fund FXAIX, after learning about them in a personal-finance class at school.

For "most people my age, the value of the college degree has lessened," Erlichson said. Many of his peers are exploring ways to earn money that don't require higher education, he noted. While Erlichson still sees college as necessary for securing work that lends itself to "a comfortable life," he believes investing is an equally important component. "If you can make your money work for itself, why wouldn't you?," he said.

As technology and new platforms have made the financial markets more accessible, and other assets people previously built their wealth on - most notably, their homes - have become less affordable, a growing share of young Americans and their parents have made investing a focus of their financial efforts, experts say.

The financial-services firms Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab all told MarketWatch there have been notable increases in the number of youth investment accounts opened in recent years. And as more young people question the value of a college degree in an evolving labor market, teens told MarketWatch it is particularly important to prioritize investments, and not just degrees, from an early age to secure their financial futures.

At Vanguard, the surge in interest in youth investing has translated to a 56% increase in the number of custodial brokerage accounts - which an adult manages for a minor - from 2020 to 2025, according to data shared with MarketWatch. Fidelity had 61% more custodial accounts in 2025 compared with 2022, and 214% more youth accounts for teens ages 13 to 17 to start investing on their own over the same period. Schwab told MarketWatch the number of custodial brokerage accounts increased by 9% in the past year alone.

More dramatic changes could be on the way. The launch this summer of a program that will provide government funding of "Trump accounts" for children born between 2025 and 2028 will potentially make investing more accessible to a cohort of kids who do not come from well-resourced families that are familiar with the financial markets.

"I believe the Trump accounts will be remembered as one of the most transformative policy innovations of all time," said President Donald Trump at a summit about the accounts on Wednesday.

"President Trump is minting future investors on every rung of the economic ladder," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the same event. "Through the power of compound growth, Trump accounts will turn simple investments into life-changing money that our children can use for college, their first home or their retirement - the basic building blocks of the American dream."

Bessent noted that about 10,000 American children would be born on Wednesday alone, and 3.6 million would be born this year - and all of them will be eligible for a Trump account.

Brad Gerstner, co-founder of Invest America, the group spearheading the Trump accounts initiative, said at the summit that many people who have been left behind financially have become disconnected from the American dream. Gerstner said so far, only kids "with money" have been taking advantage of capitalism and investing. "The problem is everybody else," he added.

From the archives: Investing $1,544 for your baby can help them retire with $1 million, financial pros say. Could it be that simple?

In a Gallup poll conducted in December, the only aspect of the future that a majority of people felt optimistic about in 2026 was the stock market. Americans said they were pessimistic about prices, taxes, employment and general economic prosperity in the coming year.

While teens and young adults still believe in the American dream, many say "it's harder to achieve than it used to be" and surveys show that "fewer think that if you work hard, you'll succeed," said Matt Carmichael, a senior vice president at the market-research firm Ipsos. While homeownership was a top component of achieving the American dream for older generations, in Ipsos surveys, young Americans say they prioritize "freedom" instead, he noted. For some, homeownership now represents financial strain more than financial stability.

"Younger folks, especially younger men, are looking to get rich quick and also to build 'passive wealth' - all of which I think goes back to the aspiration gap," Carmichael said. "Many [old] ways of achieving the dream seem out of reach, but if you still want to get there, maybe there are some new approaches."

For Adam Erlichson's parents, investing was an important skill to pass on to their children. "We just felt like you need to give yourself every opportunity for success," said his mother, Kim.

A Gen X-er, Kim said that while her father taught her budgeting and financial concepts when she was a child, she didn't actually start investing until she started working after college. "I started later, and I think that left a lasting impression. If I had even started earlier, those extra 10 years, what might my money look like? And so that's why we started even earlier with our kids," she told MarketWatch.

As an example, if a child invests $1,000 at birth in a fund that grows 10% on average, that investment could grow to about $490,000 by age 65. By comparison, if that person didn't invest until they were age 10, missing a decade of compounding, that $1,000 investment would only grow to about $189,000 by age 65. If they didn't start investing until age 20, that $1,000 investment would only grow to $72,000 by age 65.

Parents are catching on. According to data shared with MarketWatch from Greenlight, the banking and investing app for kids, users up to age 4 who received money to invest got $219 on average last year. Users of those ages who bought stocks purchased $125 worth of equities on average - a small but incredibly early step on their investing journey. Their most popular picks included the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO, Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla $(TSLA)$, Apple $(AAPL)$ and Amazon.com (AMZN).

MarketWatch asked teens who invest about what role investing plays in their personal goals.

"It's so easy to invest now," said Alexandria Kehoe, a 17-year-old high-school junior in Florida who has been managing her own brokerage account since the pandemic - a time when many individual investors jumped into the stock market with the help of platforms like Robinhood. Among her early picks was Scientific Games (now Light & Wonder (LNWO)), a gaming, betting and lottery company. Her parents both worked in finance, and Kehoe plans to study accounting and tax law to build a career alongside her investments.

"I think it's a great thing, especially accounts like 529s, IRAs, UTMAs - long-term accounts," Kehoe said. Yet some of her peers have adopted a get-rich-quick view of investing. "They're just like, 'Oh yeah, I'll put a couple bucks in and I'll make a million.' I don't think that's how it works," she said.

Arjun Ramakrishnan, a high-school senior in Oregon who wants to work in equity research, told MarketWatch he dreams of "one day owning a home, but I don't think it's as high of a priority for me as getting other things for myself in order." He added that he wouldn't feel "as if I didn't accomplish the American dream" if he rented later into his life.

Ramakrishnan started experimenting with stock-market simulators in middle school, starting by buying shares of Apple because he knew a new iPhone would be launching soon. He opened a brokerage account in high school, and he is now invested in Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF. "I wanted to improve my own skills the most before I started actively managing my own money," he said.

Ramakrishnan is now the West Coast student advisory board vice president of the Young Investor Society, a nonprofit funded by corporate sponsors including Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs $(GS)$ and JPMorgan Chase $(JPM)$ that works with 3,370 schools - roughly 75% of which are U.S.-based high schools, plus a few middle schools.

Neil Goyal, the 17-year-old vice president of the East Coast for the Young Investors Society student advisory board, said that by the end of the ninth grade, he had opened and was managing a small account of his own, seeded with a $182.50 prize he won from the YIS, which he mainly used to buy shares of Microsoft $(MSFT)$, Apple and an S&P 500 ETF.

Attaining a college degree and investing "are equally important to me," Goyal told MarketWatch. College "opens up so many doors," but investing at the same time can help a working person "pursue what you would like to pursue, while having a solid financial future," he said.

America's first large cohort of young investors

MW Meet the teen investors building a path to the new American dream

By Venessa Wong

As more kids invest, the new 'Trump accounts' are poised to make it even easier

Many old ways of achieving the American dream seem out of reach, "but if you still want to get there, maybe there are some new approaches," said Matt Carmichael, a senior vice president at Ipsos.

In middle school, Adam Erlichson asked his parents to help him invest $100 he was gifted during the holidays. His parents had instilled a habit of saving money, and a family friend who works in finance had begun teaching him about the benefits of investing early.

His parents obliged, opening a brokerage account for him. Then, at the age of 12, "I started playing around with it," Erlichson said.

The preteen initially bought shares of Starbucks (SBUX) and Nike (NKE), brands he recognized.

"Of course, as time grew, I would diversify," he told MarketWatch. Erlichson began following business news. When Americans started traveling again after the pandemic, he bought shares of United Airlines (UAL).

Today, Erlichson is a 17-year-old high-school senior in New Jersey, and his portfolio has grown a total of 18% over the last three years. He is now looking into investing the income he earns from his car-detailing business as well as his job at a smoothie shop into index funds, such as the Fidelity 500 Index Fund FXAIX, after learning about them in a personal-finance class at school.

For "most people my age, the value of the college degree has lessened," Erlichson said. Many of his peers are exploring ways to earn money that don't require higher education, he noted. While Erlichson still sees college as necessary for securing work that lends itself to "a comfortable life," he believes investing is an equally important component. "If you can make your money work for itself, why wouldn't you?," he said.

As technology and new platforms have made the financial markets more accessible, and other assets people previously built their wealth on - most notably, their homes - have become less affordable, a growing share of young Americans and their parents have made investing a focus of their financial efforts, experts say.

The financial-services firms Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab all told MarketWatch there have been notable increases in the number of youth investment accounts opened in recent years. And as more young people question the value of a college degree in an evolving labor market, teens told MarketWatch it is particularly important to prioritize investments, and not just degrees, from an early age to secure their financial futures.

At Vanguard, the surge in interest in youth investing has translated to a 56% increase in the number of custodial brokerage accounts - which an adult manages for a minor - from 2020 to 2025, according to data shared with MarketWatch. Fidelity had 61% more custodial accounts in 2025 compared with 2022, and 214% more youth accounts for teens ages 13 to 17 to start investing on their own over the same period. Schwab told MarketWatch the number of custodial brokerage accounts increased by 9% in the past year alone.

More dramatic changes could be on the way. The launch this summer of a program that will provide government funding of "Trump accounts" for children born between 2025 and 2028 will potentially make investing more accessible to a cohort of kids who do not come from well-resourced families that are familiar with the financial markets.

"I believe the Trump accounts will be remembered as one of the most transformative policy innovations of all time," said President Donald Trump at a summit about the accounts on Wednesday.

"President Trump is minting future investors on every rung of the economic ladder," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the same event. "Through the power of compound growth, Trump accounts will turn simple investments into life-changing money that our children can use for college, their first home or their retirement - the basic building blocks of the American dream."

Bessent noted that about 10,000 American children would be born on Wednesday alone, and 3.6 million would be born this year - and all of them will be eligible for a Trump account.

Brad Gerstner, co-founder of Invest America, the group spearheading the Trump accounts initiative, said at the summit that many people who have been left behind financially have become disconnected from the American dream. Gerstner said so far, only kids "with money" have been taking advantage of capitalism and investing. "The problem is everybody else," he added.

From the archives: Investing $1,544 for your baby can help them retire with $1 million, financial pros say. Could it be that simple?

In a Gallup poll conducted in December, the only aspect of the future that a majority of people felt optimistic about in 2026 was the stock market. Americans said they were pessimistic about prices, taxes, employment and general economic prosperity in the coming year.

While teens and young adults still believe in the American dream, many say "it's harder to achieve than it used to be" and surveys show that "fewer think that if you work hard, you'll succeed," said Matt Carmichael, a senior vice president at the market-research firm Ipsos. While homeownership was a top component of achieving the American dream for older generations, in Ipsos surveys, young Americans say they prioritize "freedom" instead, he noted. For some, homeownership now represents financial strain more than financial stability.

"Younger folks, especially younger men, are looking to get rich quick and also to build 'passive wealth' - all of which I think goes back to the aspiration gap," Carmichael said. "Many [old] ways of achieving the dream seem out of reach, but if you still want to get there, maybe there are some new approaches."

For Adam Erlichson's parents, investing was an important skill to pass on to their children. "We just felt like you need to give yourself every opportunity for success," said his mother, Kim.

A Gen X-er, Kim said that while her father taught her budgeting and financial concepts when she was a child, she didn't actually start investing until she started working after college. "I started later, and I think that left a lasting impression. If I had even started earlier, those extra 10 years, what might my money look like? And so that's why we started even earlier with our kids," she told MarketWatch.

As an example, if a child invests $1,000 at birth in a fund that grows 10% on average, that investment could grow to about $490,000 by age 65. By comparison, if that person didn't invest until they were age 10, missing a decade of compounding, that $1,000 investment would only grow to about $189,000 by age 65. If they didn't start investing until age 20, that $1,000 investment would only grow to $72,000 by age 65.

Parents are catching on. According to data shared with MarketWatch from Greenlight, the banking and investing app for kids, users up to age 4 who received money to invest got $219 on average last year. Users of those ages who bought stocks purchased $125 worth of equities on average - a small but incredibly early step on their investing journey. Their most popular picks included the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO, Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN).

MarketWatch asked teens who invest about what role investing plays in their personal goals.

"It's so easy to invest now," said Alexandria Kehoe, a 17-year-old high-school junior in Florida who has been managing her own brokerage account since the pandemic - a time when many individual investors jumped into the stock market with the help of platforms like Robinhood. Among her early picks was Scientific Games (now Light & Wonder (LNWO)), a gaming, betting and lottery company. Her parents both worked in finance, and Kehoe plans to study accounting and tax law to build a career alongside her investments.

"I think it's a great thing, especially accounts like 529s, IRAs, UTMAs - long-term accounts," Kehoe said. Yet some of her peers have adopted a get-rich-quick view of investing. "They're just like, 'Oh yeah, I'll put a couple bucks in and I'll make a million.' I don't think that's how it works," she said.

Arjun Ramakrishnan, a high-school senior in Oregon who wants to work in equity research, told MarketWatch he dreams of "one day owning a home, but I don't think it's as high of a priority for me as getting other things for myself in order." He added that he wouldn't feel "as if I didn't accomplish the American dream" if he rented later into his life.

Ramakrishnan started experimenting with stock-market simulators in middle school, starting by buying shares of Apple because he knew a new iPhone would be launching soon. He opened a brokerage account in high school, and he is now invested in Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF. "I wanted to improve my own skills the most before I started actively managing my own money," he said.

Ramakrishnan is now the West Coast student advisory board vice president of the Young Investor Society, a nonprofit funded by corporate sponsors including Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) that works with 3,370 schools - roughly 75% of which are U.S.-based high schools, plus a few middle schools.

Neil Goyal, the 17-year-old vice president of the East Coast for the Young Investors Society student advisory board, said that by the end of the ninth grade, he had opened and was managing a small account of his own, seeded with a $182.50 prize he won from the YIS, which he mainly used to buy shares of Microsoft (MSFT), Apple and an S&P 500 ETF.

Attaining a college degree and investing "are equally important to me," Goyal told MarketWatch. College "opens up so many doors," but investing at the same time can help a working person "pursue what you would like to pursue, while having a solid financial future," he said.

America's first large cohort of young investors

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

January 29, 2026 10:10 ET (15:10 GMT)

MW Meet the teen investors building a path to the -2-

The Trump administration is now taking youth investing a step further as a way to "jump-start the American dream" amid widespread voter concern about affordability. A program that will fund the upcoming Trump accounts (formally 530A accounts) offers all American children born between 2025 and 2028 a chance to be invested in the stock market.

As of 2022, just 58.1% of U.S. households had direct or indirect holdings in stocks or bonds, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission - up significantly from 38.3% in 1992, but still a narrow majority.

According to the official Trump accounts website, starting this year, parents will be able to open accounts for children who are U.S. citizens under age 18 when they file their taxes or when an online portal launches this summer. As part of a limited program, the Treasury Department will deposit $1,000 into the accounts of enrolled children born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028. Children under 18 born outside of this period can also open Trump accounts, but they will not receive the $1,000 from the government. Relatives and other donors, such as employers and foundations, will also be able to contribute to the accounts, which can only be invested in low-cost index funds.

The account will be locked until the child's 18th birthday, giving the money a chance to compound. When the child turns 18, under current rules, their Trump account automatically becomes an IRA, meaning the funds can be left to continue growing until retirement age. Moving the funds into a Roth IRA would allow the money to grow tax-free for decades. Money in Trump accounts can be withdrawn sooner for qualified expenses including education, the purchase of a first home or starting a business, according to Matt Lira, executive director at Invest America.

Related: Read this before putting any of your own money into one of those Trump accounts for babies

While it remains to be seen how many families will open Trump accounts, the program is significant in its promise to fund a sizable cohort of U.S. children's participation in the financial markets, potentially making them America's inaugural generation of (near) universally invested kids.

Even if no additional funds were added to the account after the initial $1,000 from the Treasury Department in the limited program, that investment could compound to roughly $5,800 by age 18 based on historical returns from the S&P 500 SPX. The program has been lauded by both Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, with the latter long an advocate for "baby bonds" to help build wealth.

Read more: Could 'Trump accounts' make your kids millionaires? Maybe - with this strategy.

One of the goals of the Trump accounts, Lira told MarketWatch, is to help families that don't already invest get over the "cold start" of opening an account and risking their own money, which has perpetuated wealth inequality. The accounts will at first be funded with government money, and perhaps most importantly, children can enroll when they are born. "Mathematically, the more time you can let the money work for you, the greater the financial upside," he said.

As this program kicks off, Lira said the U.S. is also experiencing a "renaissance" in children's relationship with financial literacy. A record 30 states required a personal-finance course for high-school graduation as of late 2025, according to Next Gen Personal Finance. Parents have made financial literacy a priority for their kids - especially millennial-age parents, noted Lira, himself a millennial whose experience with money "has been a challenge" in many ways.

The hope is to "have an entire generation that's experienced compounding firsthand, and appreciates compounding and savings. It changes their financial behaviors, and they've had these great educational moments formally in the classroom and extracurricularly," Lira said. These kids are "going to make smarter financial decisions as a whole," he hopes.

'I check the bitcoin price every day during or on the way to school.' Riley, an 11-year-old investor

Early success with stocks can provide critical momentum.

Josh Kinser, a 50-year-old father of three in Texas, said he participated in a stock competition workshop in elementary school. His pick, Coca-Cola $(KO)$, did very well. He won, earning his homeroom class a pizza party, he told MarketWatch: "There was a lot of clout in that." His uncle later bought him stocks, which also performed well. Later, when he worked as a server through college, he continued to "dabble in stocks."

Kinser is now teaching his own children about investing through a variety of kid-oriented apps like Greenlight, Stockpile and Acorns. Riley, his 11-year-old, has made some profitable trades on stocks like Netflix $(NFLX)$ and Roblox $(RBLX)$, which she buys with a share of her allowance and cash gifts. "I check the bitcoin price (BTCUSD) every day during or on the way to school," she said.

Shifting wealth-building patterns

As more Americans invest in the financial markets overall, the increase has been particularly dramatic for young Americans.

Just a decade ago, investing remained "a relatively rare occurrence for people in their mid-20s," according to a 2025 report from the JPMorganChase Institute. In 2015, only 6% of 25-year-olds had moved money into investment accounts since age 22; by 2022, that share had increased to 39%. It slipped to 37% in 2024, but was still up sixfold.

While this trend may have been a temporary fluke related to the pandemic-era savings boom, "amid a decline in those becoming first-time homeowners, [it] suggests a potential change in wealth-accumulation patterns, in which the stock market plays a bigger role in people's financial lives relative to prior generations," JPMorganChase Institute researchers noted.

Meanwhile, this shift also appears to be catalyzed by an unfavorable change in the job market for young Americans in recent years, especially those in white-collar occupations. The unemployment rate for people ages 20 to 24 in December increased to 8.2%, compared to 7.5% a year earlier and 6.4% in December 2023.

The St. Louis Fed concluded in a report last year that the "concentration of unemployment increases among recent college graduates and white-collar workers suggests that traditional assumptions about education and career security may need significant revision."

Alisa Chang, an 18-year-old high school senior in California and YIS student advisory board co-president, said she started with stock-market simulation games and then began investing real money last year through an account her father opened for her, which is performing well so far. One of her main picks is Futu $(FUTU)$, the Hong Kong-based fintech that owns Moomoo.

Chang intends to study business and start her own company in the future, but also believes it is essential to earn money from multiple channels. Hard work is important, she told MarketWatch, but if "something bad happens to one side, the other side could hold you up still."

Chang especially hopes that youth organizations like YIS can introduce other female teens to the benefits investing can have on financial security. In her experience so far, "??I noticed mostly guys are into investing," she said.

Fundamentally, the teens interviewed by MarketWatch - some of whom were born overseas or whose parents are immigrants - expressed dreams similar to the ones Americans have had for generations. The path there, however, is shifting.

"My goal is to live comfortably," Erlichson said. "To have a house and have a family; hopefully, to do well enough where I can provide and get my family whatever they would like. And travel is a big thing for me - I want to be able to take my kids to see the world. You always hope that your kids climb the ladder. At least that's what I hear my dad say: You hope that your kids do better than you."

What personal-finance issues would you like to see covered in MarketWatch? We would like to hear from readers about their financial decisions and money-related questions. You can fill out this form or write to us at readerstories@marketwatch.com. A reporter may be in touch to learn more. MarketWatch will not attribute your answers to you by name without your permission.

-Venessa Wong

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