Jaydyn Carr was a GameStop shareholder long before the buying frenzy that sent share prices skyrocketing, and now the 10-year-old investor has cashed in, making almost US$3,200.
His mother, Nina Carr, told CNN that she bought Jaydyn 10 shares of the company's stock in 2019 as a Kwanzaa present, because she wanted to teach him about investing.
The San Antonio fifth grader loves video games, so the stock was a natural choice.
"We were always there two years ago, just buying different video games," she said. "I was like, 'I can give him the shares the GameStop and give him something tangible to hold on to and that way he can appreciate it that way.'"
She bought the shares for about $60 and printed out a stock certificate, which she framed and gift wrapped. He'd been wanting an XBox One but said he liked the gift.
"It was very cool that I got stock in one of the companies that I mostly used," Jaydyn said.
He would occasionally look at the stock price for fun but said his mom taught him to think of it as a long-term investment.
GameStop stock (GME) has risen more than 1,500% for the year. The gains have largely been driven by a group of investors on Reddit, who are buying the stock to hurt short sellers and hedge funds that had bet on the stock to go down.
Carr has been an active investor for about five years and had set up an alert to keep track of the stock price.
On Wednesday morning, her phone started going crazy. She saw that the stock had reached $350 and was going up and down dramatically.
She ran to get her son, who was doing his virtual school work in his room, and quickly explained what was going on. She asked him what he wanted to do.
"I wanted to sell it then and there because I knew it could drop in seconds," Jaydyn said.
They ended up selling the stock for about $320 per share, for a total of almost $3,200, Carr said.
It was Jaydyn's first stock, but he said he's researching his next purchases.
Carr said she's teaching her son about investing, saving, credit card debt, and other financial topics he'll need to understand as he gets older.
"We're African American. You don't see a lot of that in our community," she said. "I wanted to give him a step up when it comes to learning these things because I learned it later in life and I wish I had known sooner."
His dad died in 2014, which made his mom determined to make sure Jaydyn was financially literate.
"He's my legacy," she said. "I have to make sure that he's prepared for the future."
Jaydyn is putting $2,000 in his savings account and plans to invest $1,000.
He said he'd like to buy shares in Microsoft and Roblox, a popular online game company that is preparing for its IPO.
