The millennial generation is often criticized for being uninvolved in investing and not learning any life skills. They have been referred to as the “The Me Me Me Generation”. However, according to millennials, that isn’t a bad thing, as they are looking out for their own best interests. So now, when it comes to investing, they are getting there, slowly but surely.
Millennials are increasingly getting into the investing game. And, when you look at their investments, you’ll see that a lot of them are based on things they use every day. There are social media, technology, and e-commerce investments at the forefront. There are also some surprising energy and automotive company contenders. For example, millennials are not giving up on GE, but they are also sticking to relatively safe, less-pricey investments.
So that being said, we have decided to go over some of the most popular investment trends for millennials. And to make sure it is in true millennial form, we have made it into a list. So without further ado, here are the top 20 stocks millennials are investing in today.
Disney (NYSE:DIS)
Disney is a major part of most millennials’ childhood, so it makes sense that it is a popular stock among them. Disney is a media and entertainment company that operates all around the world. Its founders, Walt and Roy Disney, started the company in 1923 as an animation company.
Disney has been a brand-buying titan. It has invested in other companies and brands since the 1980s to help build its family-friendly empire. The company reports a $59.4 billion revenue per year. It employs over two hundred thousand people.
Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) (NASDAQ:SBUX)
Pretty much everyone in America (and worldwide) knows what Starbucks is. Starbucks is an international coffee company. Like AMD, it has been around for decades. Starbucks was started in 1971 in Washington. It turned a good profit in Seattle in the eighties, and it decided to expand.
It first went into the Midwest and British Columbia. It made another large profit in California. Internationally, the coffeehouse opened its first branch in 1996 in Tokyo, Japan. Kevin Johnson replaced Howard Schulz as the CEO of Starbucks in 2017.
GoPro (NASDAQ:GPRO)
GoPro is another company that manufactures wearable technology. Nick Woodman founded the company in 2002. GoPro provides action cameras that attach to your clothing or equipment while you work out. It also comes with a mobile app and software to edit the videos.
It is headquartered in the California city of San Mateo. It reported revenue of a little over one billion dollars in 2017. In 2016, GoPro developed a drone, Karma, but it was discontinued just last year. The company is now focused almost exclusively on action cameras.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Like the other names on this list, Apple is instantly familiar. The tech giant was once named Apple Computer Company. Apple Computer Company turned into Apple Computer Inc. in 1977, which it remained until 2007. Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak are the three founders.
Apple has long been heralded as one of the “Big Four” of tech. Alongside it are Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Apple has a large revenue. It marked $265 billion for the financial year in 2018. Approximately 1.3 billion Apple products are in active use across the world.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) (NYSE:GE)
Interestingly, Millennials are not giving up on General Electric. GE’s headquarters are in Boston, but the company’s incorporation is in New York. GE is the eighteenth-largest company in America as of 2018. However, it has definitely been embattled with financial issues.
GE is one of the original dozen companies first listed on the Dow Jones index. Right now, GE is down. If you’re looking to buy cheap stock and think you can wait out the plunge, buy GE. But financially, GE hasn’t been the same since the 2008 recession.
Ford Motor (NYSE:F)
Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) is one of the most well-known auto companies in America. Ford sells under both the Ford and Lincoln brand. Its Lincoln brand is reserved for high-end, luxury cars.
Ford has been around since 1903, and its founder was the first to introduce manufacturing-style factories for cars. In 2017, Ford had a $156.7 billion revenue. Ford has gone through its share of financial issues, but it is coming back from the 2008 recession, and millennials support it.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Microsoft’s headquarters are located in the city of Redmond, Washington. As everyone knows, this multinational tech company produces software, appliances, computers, phones, and other similar services. Founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, the company’s original purpose was selling BASIC interpreters.
It wasn’t until later that Microsoft became the PC titan that it is today. Microsoft has outpaced Apple just recently. It was named the most valuable public company in 2018. This was a victory for Microsoft, as Apple had held that title since 2010.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg founded the social media giant in 2004. It was originally started as a way to connect people on Harvard’s campus. The social website allowed people to rate others on the site. The membership expanded to other Ivy League schools. Zuckerberg realized then that he was on to something major. So, he expanded the company to everyone.
Now, people who are thirteen and older can use the site. Facebook recently had a scandal involving the disclosure of information to political marketing companies. The stock has been shaky after that, but it is recovering.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Amazon is an e-commerce site that rakes in billions per year. It is the largest e-commerce retailer. Jeff Bezos founded the company in 1994 as a way to sell books. It expanded immensely, and now it retails pretty much every consumer product you can think of.
The company is also looking into cloud computing and AI (Artificial Intelligence). Alongside Apple, Google, and Facebook, it is one of the “Four Horsemen” of the tech industry. It earned that title because it was the first mega e-commerce site of its kind.
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Netflix has grown popular only relatively recently, but it was founded in 1997, over twenty years ago. Netflix’s founders, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, originally intended the company to be a mail-order DVD distribution rental business. But it became much more than that.
Netflix headquarters are in Los Gatos, California, where it rakes in nearly twelve billion dollars in revenue each year. The company has a high amount of debt as it continues to expand. It operates in 190 countries now. Its founders justify taking the debt because it will pay off in the long run.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG)
While the other names on this list have been (for the most part) instantly recognizable, Alphabet is possibly not one of them. Alphabet’s headquarters are in California, and it is Google’s parent company. In 2015, Google restructured its corporate organization in a major way. Alphabet became the parent company.
The Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, took executive roles in Alphabet. The company pulls in more than $110 billion in revenue each year. The company is publicly held, and it has been since its inception.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Pretty much everyone is familiar with Tesla’s “unique” founder, Elon Musk. Musk is one of five founders of the company, but he is arguably most visible, as his social media presence is notable. Tesla is based in Southern (NYSE:SO) (NYSE:SO) California. The company builds electric cars and solar panels.
In 2017, it output a little over 101,000 vehicles. It brought in $11.76 billion in revenue. Tesla has factories in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Asia, and Europe. Its cars now are very expensive. Musk, as CEO, said that he hopes the company will be able to offer lower costs.
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) Inc (NASDAQ:AMD)
One popular stock among millennial investors is Advanced Micro Devices. What people may not realize is that AMD has been around since 1969. Jerry Sanders and his colleagues left a previous tech company after being disappointed with the management there.
Since AMD’s founding, it has moved from supplying microchips to building semiconductors. It also has a range of software programs. Its base is both in Santa Clara, CA and Austin, Texas. Its manufacturing is outsourced, as AMD has had to cut back some. It is still a strong stock, despite these cutbacks.
Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) (NASDAQ:MU)
Micron Technology is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Micron is a holding company. Its subsidiaries produce and design semiconductors, computers, and other tech products. The company reported more than $20 billion in revenue in 2017.
Its founders started the company back in 1979. At first, it was a consultant firm for semiconductors. After it merged with ZEOS, Micron Computer, and MCMS, the company was able to acquire more subsidiaries and grow. It has two joint ventures with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) (NASDAQ:INTC), IM Flash Technologies and IM Flash Singapore.
Fitbit (NYSE:FIT)
Fitbit is a wearable technological piece that tracks information about your fitness. Calorie counts, step counts, exercise data, and more are all tracked on this little piece of wearable tech. Fitbit isn’t just for people who go to the gym religiously. It is for everyone, and the prices have a reasonably-sized range.
Fitbit was founded in 2007 in San Francisco, California. It ranks only behind Apple and Xiaomi in terms of popularity for wearable tech items. It has one subsidiary, Pebble, a smartwatch company.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) (NYSE:CHK)
Chesapeake’s headquarters are located in Oklahoma City. The company, founded in 1989, operates in the petroleum industry. It engages in natural gas exploration and petroleum exploration. The company’s founders named the company after their fondness for the Chesapeake Bay region.
The company has a high output. It produced 3.35 million gallons of oil per day in 2017. That amounted to over half a million barrels. The company has nearly two billion barrels of oil in reserve now. The oil is mostly natural gas, petroleum, and natural gas liquids.
Square (NYSE:SQ) (NYSE:SQ)
Square is an IT services company with headquarters in San Francisco. Square operates all across the world as a financial services and mobile payment business. Square supplies software and hardware products for processing payments.
It offers chip readers, microstrip readers, and more. Square also has a small business wing, Square Capital, that finances startups. Square is big into mobile apps as well. Its Cash App is one of the most popular. Cash App lets people pay other people instantly, with no need for a more complex process.
Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) (NYSE:SNAP)
Snap, Inc. developed Snapchat, the mega-popular social site that lets you send disappearing pictures and messages to friends. Three former Stanford students created the app. It operates on Android and iOS. Snap, Inc. also has three other products, Bitmoji, Spectacles, and Zenly.
Snap, Inc. stock really only began trading public recently, starting in 2017. So far, Snap, Inc. has been resistant to buyout efforts from Google and Snapchat. Its current revenue is $825 million. It has recently gone through a bout of financial problems, leaving open the buyout question.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) (NYSE:BAC)
Bank of America has been around as its own institution since 1998. It came about after Nations Bank acquired BankAmerica. It is America’s second-largest bank, and its largest competitors are Citigroup (NYSE:C) (NYSE:C), JP Morgan & Chase, and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) (NYSE:WFC).
Bank of America works with wealth management, commercial banking, and investing. Bank of America was originally the Bank of Italy, founded in 1904 in California. The Bank of Italy helped Italian people, who at the time were victims of discrimination, obtain banking services.
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in California, Nvidia is a tech company. Nvidia was founded in the 1990s with just $40K of capital. It designs graphics processing units and systems on chip units for different markets. It works with gaming and auto markets and companies, mostly.
Nvidia’s main competitor is Advanced Microdevices, another member of this list. Nvidia has expanded to focus on artificial intelligence. It reported over nine billion dollars in revenue in 2017. Its subsidiary is Nvidia Advanced Rendering Center.