Over the years, CNBC’s Jim Cramer found that when it comes to investing, some of the best advisors have been none other than his two teenage daughters.
“We all know that teenagers are incorrigible. The last thing they want to hear about is stocks. They have bigger fish to fry. To which I say, so what? I’m not going to tell them what to buy. I’m going to let them tell me,” the “Mad Money” host said.
Cramer started with the stock of Domino’s. The “Mad Money” host thought it was a good speculative stock after CEO Patrick Doyle took up reforming the quality of the ingredients.
“But that’s not what made this stock a ‘Mad Money’ crown jewel. Nope, it was the technology behind DPZ,” Cramer said, adding that until his kids discovered the Domino’s ordering app, they preferred local pizza restaurants to the national chain.
Cramer’s daughters, like so many other millennials, hate talking on the phone, especially given the risk of the person on the other end getting their orders wrong or giving them an incorrect estimate for when their food would be delivered.
The Domino’s app, along with eliminating the human aspect of ordering and letting you see how close to done your pizza is, also lets you pay online, another plus for the younger audience.
“All of this technology was totally lost on me,” Cramer said. “I never minded the phone, was always patient about when the pizza would arrive, never cared about the interchange with the delivery person. I kind of liked it. In short, I was not like the target audience. That’s why I always call Domino’s a tech company that sells pizza.”
Cramer’s kids gave him similar insight into the stock of Apple. His youngest daughter wanted a second iPod not because she lost the first, but because she wanted another color.
Both of his daughters are also steadfast members of the Apple ecosystem when it comes to personal computers and iPhones, even though they dislike the plug and earbud changes.
“When my kids come to me and beg me for a Samsung, you know what? You might hear me say some different things about Apple than I currently do,” Cramer said.
Since his daughters are not big sports fans, they entertain themselves by watching Netflix. They were on Facebook early, and Instagram soon after. “Google it, Dad,” is a household phrase.
Right there are three key components of Cramer’s acronym for the top-tier, high-growth technology stocks of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, now Alphabet: FANG.
“What if the picks themselves aren’t any good? What if they are errant?” the “Mad Money” host asked. “OK, that’s the cost of learning.”
He learned with GoPro and Fitbit, two companies whose stocks have seriously underperformed since their respective initial public offerings despite being huge fads with younger generations.
“You see, that’s the beautiful thing about teen investing. You can lose it and no one may end up noticing in the end,” Cramer said. “You pull the same kind of thing later in real life, like me, it’s got consequences. But the bottom line is that for now you can learn from your teenage children. Trust me. Invest with them. And you won’t regret it.”
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