Fifth-Grader Made More Than $3,000 From GameStop Stock; Mother Bought Son Shares As Kwanzaa Gift: ‘I Was Teaching Him Financial Literacy’

A fifth-grader from San Antonio, Texas, made $3,000 from GameStop stock.

Nina Carr gifted her 10-year-old son Jaydyn Carr 10 shares of GameStop stock after purchasing it back in 2019. Today, the child has made $3,200 after the stock incident last week involving Reddit users and amateur investors, NBC Washington reports. The mother gave her son the shares as a Kwanzaa gift. The shares were worth $6 when Nina purchased them.

“I know this kid loves video games, and at the time I was teaching him financial literacy,” she told TODAY. Nina said she had alerts set up for her on her phone. When the stock prices start skyrocketing, Nina said, “I saw the price and I was just like, ‘There’s no way this can be real.”

But, it was real. Jaydyn wanted to understand more about why the stock price was going up. “Ummm, why?!” Nina said she asked her son if he’d like to sell his stock. “And I was probably stuttering and mumbling, trying to hurry up and explain this is unusual, this doesn’t happen all the time, so yeah it was definitely a moment,” Nina said.

Jaydyn decided to take the money. “I’ve already saved $2,200 of it,” he said. “And the rest of the $1,000 is gonna go to invest in more companies like Microsoft, Roblox, and different companies.”

Last week, small investors worked together to drive up GameStop and other companies’ stock prices while also investing in hedge funds and other firms that shorted the stock, NBC reports. The entire situation now has legislators searching for a fairer market for individual investors.

“For years, the same hedge funds, private equity firms, and wealthy investors dismayed by the GameStop trades have treated the stock market like their own personal casino while everyone else pays the price,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a news release. “It’s long past time for the SEC and other financial regulators to wake up and do their jobs — and with a new administration and Democrats running Congress, I intend to make sure they do.”