His mother, Nina Carr, told CNN that she bought Jaydyn 10 shares of the company in 2019 as a gift from Kwanzaa, because she wanted to teach him how to invest.
San Antonio’s fifth-year student loves video games, so inventory was a natural choice.
“We have always been there for two years, just buying different video games,” she said. “I was like, ‘I can give him GameStop shares and give him something tangible to hold on to and that way he can enjoy it that way.'”
She bought the stock for about $ 60 and printed out a stock certificate, which she framed and gift-wrapped. He was looking for an XBox One, but said he liked the gift.
“It was really cool to have shares in one of the companies that used it the most,” said Jaydyn.
He occasionally looked at the stock price for fun, but said his mother taught him to think of it as a long-term investment.
Carr has been an active investor for about five years and created an alert to track the stock price.
On Wednesday morning, his phone started going crazy. She saw that the stock had reached $ 350 and was going up and down dramatically.
She ran to pick up her son, who was doing virtual schoolwork in her classroom, and quickly explained what was going on. She asked what he wanted to do.
“I wanted to sell it at that time because I knew it could go down in seconds,” said Jaydyn.
They ended up selling the shares for about $ 320 per share, for a total of nearly $ 3,200, Carr said.
It was Jaydyn’s first move, but he said he is researching his next purchases.
Carr said he is teaching his son about investment, savings, credit card debt and other financial topics that he will need to understand as he ages.
“We are African Americans. You don’t see much of that in our community,” she said. “I wanted to take him a step further when it comes to learning these things because I learned them later in life and I wish I had known them earlier.”
Her father died in 2014, which left her mother determined to ensure that Jaydyn was financially literate.
“He is my legacy,” she said. “I have to make sure that he is prepared for the future.”
Jaydyn is putting $ 2,000 into his savings account and plans to invest $ 1,000.