Buying Stock As A Gift For Kids

[rapidacid]

Recently came across this resource, Spark Gift, that makes it easy-ish to buy stocks as gifts for anyone, but maybe most specifically as gifts for kids

http://faq.sparkgift.com/help_center

I'd been thinking about this topic a lot recently as I have young kids that I want to talk to about investing + saving + compounding + dividends

What stock would you buy as a gift for someone young? I'd probably start with KO as it's easy to touch + feel + identify as a company that makes a product that people like you & I buy.

[Rasec]

A nice basket of KO/PEP, General Mills (Cheerios), Disney and Hasbro. You can eat it, drink it and play with it!

But honestly, I would rather do it from my own broker and call it "kid's portfolio" instead of using another broker. But now that I think about it, all I'm building in my brokerage account will be for my kid someday. So I'll just assign him as CFO of our personal finances when he becomes old enough to be introduced to investing (I'm thinking 10-12 years old).

[crimsonghost747]

I've pondered about the idea. Never knew there was a service for it and this does kinda get rid of the most common problems which are opening a brokerage account for a small kid and depositing (well using) small amounts. If you can get other relatives to chip in.. for example getting only a tiny gift for the child (everyone wants to hand them something on their birthday etc) and depositing a little to the account each time, in the end it will turn out to be a pretty decent sum by the time they grow up.

I do agree that the companies need to, at least a part of them, be something that the children see in everyday life. Kellogs, KO, MCD... though of course other stuff than food too. But it's an important part in making them understanding what they own and how the whole thing works.

But I'm also kinda with rasec here, my portfolio will most likely never be sold so it will be passed on as inheritance when the time comes. But of course them having their own portfolio would make it a bit simpler for them to use the cash when they need to (studying, buying first apartment, first car, that short unemployment between graduation and job etc)