Young people go against the trend – buying stocks in the crash

The school day has just begun at Tumba upper secondary school's line with a focus on stocks and finance. The Stockholm Stock Exchange has fallen by another 3 percent this morning.

I've made a profit of 70 kronor in the past few days, enough for a Donken, says 17-year-old Daniel Al-Badri jokingly.

His classmate Elias El Shobaki bought his first share, in the then crisis-stricken airline SAS, about four years ago.

I sold in panic, but it wasn't about large sums. It was a very bad market when I started, he says.

Taking it easy

That was during the pandemic. Since then, a series of events have shaken the stock market, such as the war in Ukraine with subsequent inflation and interest rate hikes, and now Donald Trump's tariff chaos.

But Elias El Shobaki is taking it easy.

It's obviously tragic when it goes down, but in the long run, the stock market has always gone up, and I don't need the money now, he says.

According to the online broker Avanza, people between the ages of 18 and 24 net-bought shares on the first three trading days after Donald Trump's tariff decision, unlike older age groups that sold more than they bought.

Young people are optimists, and rightly so. If you have a long time until you need the money – for many, this is probably a pension savings – then there's no reason to sell, says Philip Scholtzé, savings economist at Avanza.

At Nordnet, young people acted more like the savings collective as a whole. But what both online brokers see is that young people have bought shares in US companies to a greater extent.

It differs from how they trade compared to other age groups. If you look at the most bought shares now, both Apple and Amazon are included, says Scholtzé.

"It's about time"

Nordnet's savings economist Frida Bratt writes in a comment to TT that young people have a greater tendency to buy foreign shares, also now:

"You dare to pick up American shares, despite the uncertainty", she writes.

Elias El Shobaki, like several of the other students at Tumba upper secondary school, sees an opportunity to buy despite the red numbers.

I've actually bought now, but it's like catching a falling knife.

He gets support from his classmate Lukas Arverud, who hasn't yet figured out if he should buy now or wait a bit.

I think it's time to invest now when it's cheap. It's about time, if you can wait long enough, it will go up. You have to see it from the bright side, he says.

Johanna Ekström/TT