Despite what your uncle is always railing on about, kids these days aren’t spending all of their money on ripped jeans and avocado toast. A chunk of Gen Zers, and some millennials, are investing their extra cash—and some are even getting into the market before their parents did.

The number of 26-year-olds who moved money into investment accounts (not including 401(k)s) after turning 22 jumped from 8% in 2015 to 40% as of May 2025, according to data from the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

Young people are also investing earlier than ever:

• In a 2024 World Economic Forum survey, 30% of Gen Z respondents said they began investing in early adulthood before entering the workforce, compared to just 6% of baby boomers.
• Six percent of Gen Zers said they started investing “in adolescence.”

How’d they get so smart? The roughly 6 billion app-based investing platforms (conservative estimate) on their phones surely play a big role. Studies show that young people also don’t have much faith in traditional financial safety nets or a stable job market, and some of this distrust has pushed younger investors toward nontraditional, riskier investments, like crypto and prediction markets.

But perhaps the biggest factor is that most young people with extra cash are still priced out of buying a house. And for those with down payment money, a house is still a less lucrative long-term investment compared to the stock market. The share of American homebuyers aged 18 to 39 dropped from 51% in 1999 to 44% last year, according to a Redfin analysis of census data.—MM

More than any other generation, Gen Zers invest by sowing what they scroll. And between all those videos of AI fruit, they’re scrolling through a lot of financial influencer, or “finfluencer,” content.

“Suddenly, you have someone who doesn’t look like your dad’s financial advisor. You have somebody who looks like I could be anybody’s college best friend,” Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF—a Wall Street trader turned finfluencer businesswoman—told Fortune. She’s one of many young creators who net hundreds of thousands to millions of views per video by explaining personal finance tips like a chronically online friend would on FaceTime.

Older generations may raise their eyebrows at advice that doesn’t come from a licensed advisor or a finance publication, but finfluencer content has a heavy hand in younger generations’ investment decisions:

• Almost 70% of Gen Zers said last year that they’d been influenced by a financial trend they saw online, compared to 51% of millennials and 27% of Gen Xers, according to a survey by H&R Block.
• Social media is the main reason that 55% of Gen Zers say they started investing, compared to 44% of millennials, the think tank Oliver Wyman Forum recently found.

Young investors know this is risky. In a Charles Schwab study where Gen Zers said they turn to social media for financial tips, they also ranked social media as the least trustworthy source for that type of information. Hey, free advice is free advice…except when it costs you. Last year, more than half of respondents in a Certified Financial Planner Board survey said that they made regrettable financial moves based on misleading information they saw online. (If the finfluencer on your screen is trying to sell you something, that can be a red flag.)

The latest finfluencing entrant: Jimmy Donaldson, aka YouTube magnate MrBeast, whose company recently bought a teen-focused banking app that has toyed with launching a crypto feature, prompting concern and questions from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.—ML

When it comes to day trading, there are no truly typical days.

Some work in the wee hours on overseas markets and keep a schedule reminiscent of Mark Wahlberg’s. Some are locked in from the moment the US markets open until they close. Others are sneaking off to a bathroom to make trades as a side hustle during their 9-to-5s.

But the average practitioner of high-risk buying and selling stocks within the same day tends to:

Not drink energy drinks: The cliché of a twitching, unshaven, unwashed man in his 20s pounding drinks with a lightning bolt or a mythical creature on the can to heighten focus is just a stereotype, as many day traders say that too much caffeine is a detriment to making money.

Lose money: Even if you have the discipline to avoid cracking a can of green liquid that can stop your heart, studies show that most day traders are getting killed out there.

Be stressed out: Nearly a quarter of day traders surveyed in 2022 reported feeling moderate, severe, or extremely severe stress levels.

Be lonely: Turns out that staring at a screen by yourself all day isn’t great for your mental health. A 2022 study on isolated careers found that only crypto traders and “real-time platform users” on investing apps scored higher on the UCLA Loneliness Scale than regular investors and non-investors.—DL

The investment strategies of many rank-and-file workers could be sponsored by Red Bull because of how adrenaline-inducing they’ve become. Americans are embracing speculative assets like crypto and prediction market bets to complement the diversified stock and bond portfolios your grandparents used to grow their piggy banks.

Much of this trading is happening on digital platforms like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Kalshi that have made it possible to bet your net worth on red at the roulette table go long and short on speculative assets while sitting on the toilet:

• In 2025, 17% of American investors said they owned crypto, up from 2% in 2018, according to a Gallup poll.
• A recent study by Northwestern Mutual found that about a third of Gen Zers and almost a quarter of millennials said they already have invested, or planned to invest, in sports betting or prediction markets this year.
• Stock options—which refers to bets on the price movement of a stock that offers higher potential returns with a much higher probability of losing 100% of the money invested—are no longer solely the domain of pro traders: Retail investors’ share of stock options trading has hovered between 40% and 50% in recent years, compared to about 35% pre-pandemic, per data cited by the NYSE.

Meanwhile, many Americans are tying their financial futures to volatile assets that you can store away in a locked safe—like gold, luxury watches, and trading cards.

It might be financial nihilism…aka the belief that traditional investments are futile because the system is rigged, that’s driving people to chase risky investments in hopes that the higher potential returns will offer a shortcut to prosperity. For instance, there’s evidence suggesting that Americans may be placing risky bets instead of pursuing homeownership, which has become out of reach for many. Data cited by Bloomberg shows that crypto investments were more prevalent among renters with a net worth under $300,000 than among homeowners with the same wealth level.—SK

“Dip” and “rip” may sound like the lead characters of an off-brand version of the Rescue Rangers, but the terms have an investing connection. Here’s a quick tutorial on the internet’s favorite investing phrases, and, yes, it contains 1990s movie spoilers.

Buying the dip: The phrase has nothing to do with Skoal Wintergreen. It just means that someone is buying a stock, cryptocurrency, or other asset after its price goes down. If the price recovers after you buy the asset, then you ended up getting it at a discount.

It’s like in The Lion King, when Timon and Pumbaa rescued a young Simba as he lay in the dusty heat, vultures circling (pour one out for Mufasa). They took a chance on Simba at his lowest point, seeing the value he could provide in the future. They bought the dip.

Selling the rip: This is basically the opposite of buying the dip. It means that you’re selling a stock or other asset when its value is strong so that you can lock in those gains. Like if you owned stock in the movie character Forrest Gump, you could sell after he became an All-American football player. Or a war hero. Or a ping-pong master. Or a shrimp millionaire. Forrest ripped a lot.—BC