Long before he ran a family office, Alejandro Betancourt López bought shares of Citibank. He was 17, he said in a February 2022 interview, and he waved the purchase away almost as soon as he mentioned it.
“I bought Citibank when I was 17 years old in a bank account,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s relevant for this conversation.” He preferred to talk about his first private equity deals.
Young Investors Then and Now
Young investors are far more common today, according to a 2023 survey by the CFA Institute and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. The study polled 2,872 people in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and China. It found that 56% of U.S. members of Generation Z, ages 18 to 25, owned at least one investment. The share reached 74% in Canada, 57% in China and 49% in the U.K.
Eighty-two percent of U.S. Gen Z investors started before age 21, as did 79% in Canada and 81% in the U.K., against 63% in China. Their first purchases looked different from his. Forty-four percent of U.S. Gen Z investors started with crypto, compared with 35% of millennial investors and 23% of Gen X investors. Paul Andrews of the CFA Institute said the newcomers were changing investment practices, products and platforms. His own first trade came long before phone apps made buying a single share a matter of a few taps.