KID WITH PORTFOLIO.

• Author: BECK, CATHIE
• Position: Brief Article

NOWADAYS, TEENS DON'T TRADE RECORD ALBUMS OR MAKE-UP TIPS, THEY TRADE STOCKS

TIME WAS WHEN TEENAGERS WANTING EXTRA CASH did one of two things: asked their parents for the money, or took an odd job, usually at a counter or in the kitchen of a fast-food outlet. Today, teens are just as likely to turn to investment portfolios-their own.

Built upon their own research of company quarterly reports, investment publications, business-news television shows and the Internet, more and more underage gurus are reporting they have gone beyond earning small change to creating small fortunes.

Jonathan Grudis is one such wise-but-youthful Wall-Street Wizard. "Sometimes when I go to school, I bring my laptop," says Grudis, a 16-year-old junior at The Alexander Dawson School in Lafayette. "I log on and research stocks on my free period. It's great. I can get my homework done, research school subjects and analyze my portfolio, all at the same time. My best stocks have come up about 300 percent over the last year and a half," he said. "In just this last year, my portfolio has gone up 32 percent, and just today it's gone up 3 percent."

Grudis, who must hold and trade stocks through a custodial account in his mother Carol's name, is not just bragging but speaking to a national trend among teens. Earlier this year, a New Jersey 15-year-old, Jonathan Lebed, ran afoul of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission when he realized nearly $300,000 in profits by sending bogus "this stock's hot" e-mail messages across the Internet. Lebed bought the stocks low, then sold quickly at a profit as other investors followed his advice and drove up the price. The youth, without admitting any wrongdoing, settled with the agency in September and paid back his profits. Even before his tangle with the feds, however, Lebed had legitimately won a CNBC investment contest, realizing a 139 percent gain in three months -- at age 13.

But Lebed might be labeled an "old-timer" by Britney Taylor's standards. A 14-year-old at Christ the King Catholic School in Denver, Taylor launched her financial portfolio at age 10. "I started investing in the stock market in 1996," says Taylor. "First, I opened a money market account. Then I decided to go with Coca-Cola and McDonald's about a year later." Her sweetest success came, however, when she realized the promise of high-tech. "I went with Sun Microsystems at $49 a share in '97," she says, with the clarity and confidence teens more traditionally...