Seventeen-year-old Dylan Jin-Ngo became fascinated with the stock market when he was in sixth grade. Now the Huntington Beach teen spends much of his free time teaching other kids about markets.
"Being able to invest without my age being a barrier was something so unique," Dylan told Yahoo Finance about his motivation. "I learned on my own for the past 3 or 4 years, and I became the youngest certified mutual fund counselor in the nation in 2020."
Dylan spearheads a literacy program through his non-profit Young Investors Corp., in partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs in Los Angeles and Orange County.
Popular topics among his students? Meme stocks and cryptocurrency.
"Throughout our five-week program, it shifts some questions like what you think about AMC (AMC)? What do you think about Bitcoin (BTC-USD)?" said Dylan. "Towards the end, it shifts to more about — how can I get my own stock portfolio? How can I talk to my parents about opening my own brokerage account?"
Dylan follows some of today's most popular stocks like Tesla (TSLA) and Apple (AAPL), and says his own portfolio includes a mix between growth and value stocks.
But with the markets touching new highs recently, the young investor portrays a cautious tone.
"The injection of money that we currently have in our economy, is something that yes, has enabled us to really receive very nice results in the past year," he said. "But I think potentially for retail traders is to really be more wary, especially heading over in the next year."
So far some 350 students have gone through Youth Investor's financial literacy program. Dylan is now working on a bill with a local assemblyman to create a pilot financial literacy program for public and charter schools in California.
"I think something like financial literacy, which is so critical in shaping a youth's future, is something that should be widely available to everyone," said Dylan. "Financial literacy ... should not be limited by socioeconomic status or opportunity."
Dylan says young people's increasing involvement in the markets isn't just a fad.
"I definitely think that this dynamic of youth being involved in the stock market and investment world is here to stay largely because of new technology and the new kind of brokerage firms that really have in getting a marketplace," he said.
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