New York — It should come as no surprise in this era of instant Internet millionaires that there are a lot of teen-age investors out there hoping to build a college fund, a retirement fund and then some.
Jay Liebowitz, 18, is one of those Wall Street wizards. He got his start in the stock market at age 13 after he created and then sold a computer software program.
Liebowitz
His first investment was a loser, but it taught him valuable lessons: do enough research and understand the risk.
Liebowitz now is sharing his wisdom with others. He has written "Wall Street Wizard: Sound Ideas From a Savvy Teen Investor" (Simon & Sch-uster, $16) and he distributes a free e-mail newsletter via his Web site, http://streetwhiz.com.
"There's not a lot of data, but I know there's a huge number of people under 18 investing," Liebowitz says.
Once the piggy bank hits $500, it's time to consider financial options other than the traditional savings bank, says Liebowitz, who is now a student at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. If you have less than $500, the transaction fees are too expensive for the investment to be worthwhile, he explains.
The money does not have to come from a mega-cyberspace deal. If a teen-ager socks away his allowance or paychecks from a part-time job, the balance builds up over time.
"The goal of investing early isn't to make a lot of money. But just putting it in the bank is teaching a bad habit," Liebowitz says.
Investing is also the best way to learn about business, he says.
Teen-agers have some great opportunities to join the investment community, he says. Many colleges offering free Internet access, which means the students can use online brokers, who typically charge lower fees than traditional brokers.
But the past year has been a bumpy ride in the stock market, and young investors are the least likely to ride it out, Liebowitz says, even though they are the ones who probably can afford a few glitches.
"My advice for the erratic performance of 2000 is 'Get over it.' You should do this (invest) regardless of what the market is doing. If you're young and in it for the long term, it doesn't matter if the market was down a few years over a
40-year period."
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