Two months ago the coronavirus bear market was slamming stocks, and my kids' investment accounts. Actually, they were still up substantially, but well off their crazy highs.
Seeing as how their absolute minimum timeline for this account is ten years we plan to just leave this account alone and let it grow at whatever pace that may be. If they get to a point as they grow older that they would like to actively manage the account I would be willing to let that happen, but for now I have no desire to manage any more family accounts. So, our only real job with these accounts is to buy stocks at levels that we think are good, and then just let the market do its thing. In the end they are sure to be up considerably, but there is no way of knowing now how much that might be.
In April we made their 2020 deposits into their accounts and began adding some new stocks. They bought Tesla, Delta, and Starbucks on April 6th, and then we didn't do anything for a few weeks. Recently they bought Hasbro and TakeTwo, bringing their total up to 14 different stocks. They currently have about $2,500 left in cash that we'll deploy when we spot something we like.
Of the bunch they've got a couple standout winners—TSLA, which has nearly doubled in two months, Amazon up about 60% in eight months, and AAPL up 45% in eight months. Laggards have been the couple of toy companies, HAS down 15%, and MAT down 5%, along with FSLR which is down 5%. Overall, the account is performing quite well, up 13.7% overall (in eight months), with $2,500 in cash still to deploy. Not bad considering this all began just a few months before one of the most historic selloffs in stock market history.
Kids are notoriously hard to impress, but a few years down the line returns like this would surely begin to raise their eyebrows. By then they'll really understand compounding, and dividend reinvestment, and all the other good stuff that makes money work and grow for you. If they can learn to make money work for them, instead of them working for money, I'll have done my job. At that point, a life of doing (work) what you love becomes a real possibility.