Surprise! Gen Y Investing in Stocks After All

Now that the baby boomers easing into retirement, there's a lot of speculation about the next generation of investors, and what to expect from them.  The general assumption has been that they're fleeing from stocks, and the trend will only continue.  So it may surprise you to know that in reality, young investors are putting more assets in stocks than their same-age counterparts a decade ago. 

According to a report issued by the Employee Benefit Research institute, over 80% of 20-something investors have 60% or more of their 401(k) assets in stocks, up from 70% of them back in 2000. 

Of course, the reason may have less to do with intent than circumstance.  It's only since 2006 that employers have been able to auto-enroll new employees in 401(k) plans, hiking enrollment numbers--especially among the newest, youngest recruits.  And that same law also allowed employers to make target-date funds, which start out heavy on the stocks and reallocate to "safer" investments over time.   

But still, according to a recent survey taken by TDAmeritrade Holding Corporation, Generation Y may not be quite as pessimistic as was previously thought: "nearly half (46%) of investors age 18-34 expect to increase the amount of money they invest in the stock market in 2012, compared to 20% of those age 35 and older." And 56% of those surveyed within the 18-34 bracket said they felt "optimistic" about the state of the stock market.  Fred Tomczyk, president and chief executive officer of TD Ameritrade, opines that "as investors get closer to retirement, they tend to become more cautious, and what's going on in the economy right now has exacerbated those feelings."  However, "younger investors tend to be more optimistic because they have time on their side."

With so much market volatility, it's hard to say how long young investors will continue the trend toward stocks.  But Wall Street will be keeping its fingers crossed that they do.

by Alicia Sellitti

Trade For Just $5, For Life

Enjoy the perks of being first--Kapitall Generation is launching with a limited offer of $5 trades, for life.  To lock in this discounted rate, just sign up for an account and place your first trade before March 31, 2012.  Click here to get started!

Kapitall Generation, LLC is an affiliate of Kapitall, Inc.

New! Next-Day Funds Transfer with Kapitall Generation

When you're ready to pull the trigger on a trade, time is of the essence.  So if you're waiting for funds to transfer into your brokerage account, three days is practically an eternity.  That's why we now expedite the process with next-day transfer through ACH, receiving your funds from your delivering financial institution up to three times faster than the other leading online brokerages.  Move funds from your financial institution today by 3pm (EST), and your funds will appear in your Kapitall Generation account by tomorrow morning.
 
For your security, Kapitall Generation can only accept deposits submitted from our website of up to $5,000 per day.

Transfer requests submitted after 2 PM Eastern Time will be processed the following business day. Your funds will be available for trading in your Kapitall Generation brokerage account on the next business day after the transfer has been processed.

Funds deposited to your Kapitall Generation brokerage account will be available for withdrawal 8 business days from the date of deposit.

Securities products and services offered by Kapitall Generation, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. See full Disclosures and Fees.
 
System Responses and account connection times may vary due to a variety of factors including trading volumes, market conditions, system performance and other factors.

TechCrunch Announces Live Trading on Kapitall

Yesterday, we officially launched our new brokerage, Kapitall Generation, and TechCrunch's Leena Rao was there to break the news.  Noting our more "visual approach to trading and analysis," Rao aptly sums up our mission to be a "simpler, more easy to use online brokerage option." Click here to check out the scoop. 

New! Turn On Live Trading

Upgrade your entire trading experience with a Kapitall Generation brokerage account.  It takes just minutes to open an account, and you decide how much you put in it. Then trading is as easy as drag and drop.

And being first has its perks. If you trade before March 31, 2012, you'll lock in a lifetime price of $5 per trade!

Start today with no minimums. 

This $5 per trade offer is valid only for the first 5,000 new customers who fund a Kapitall Generation, LLC (“Kapitall Generation”) account and place a trade that is executed by March 31, 2012. This offer is applicable only to trades of exchange-listed equity securities and ETFs. 

This offer is not valid to the following: non-U.S. residents; IRA’s, business, trust or margin accounts, to the extent they are ever offered by Kapitall Generation, LLC; and any account closed and reopened under the same registration and/or social security number. Kapitall Generation reserves the right to restrict or revoke making this offer at any time.

Securities products and services offered by Kapitall Generation, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. See full Disclosures and Fees.

System Responses and account connection times may vary due to a variety of factors including trading volumes, market conditions, system performance and other factors.

Kapitall Launches Online Investing Platform Kapitall Generation

If you can drag and you can drop, you can trade.

New York, NY, January 25, 2012 – KAPITALL (www.kapitall.com), a website designed to bring investing to everyone, introduces Kapitall Generation, its affiliated brokerage platform.  With Kapitall Generation, users can now upgrade their trading experience to live trading of stocks and ETFs. 

With KAPITALL Generation, trading has never been this simple.  It takes just minutes to open a brokerage account, and with no minimums, account holders decide how much to put in it. And KAPITALL Generation is launching with a limited offer of $5 per trade for life—no hidden trading fees ever. Then, with KAPITALL’s groundbreaking interface, trading is as easy as drag and drop.  

In addition to trading, customers can leverage Kapitall’s free practice portfolios to grow their investing skills and test-drive their ideas—risk free.  They also get fresh market insights delivered daily and intuitive tools that make it easy to find, analyze and choose stocks, plus free real-time quotes and alerts on the stocks they’re interested in.  

 “At KAPITALL, we believe that a first-class user experience has the ability to transform the investing category, just as it has changed the entertainment and computing industries,” said CEO Gaspard de Dreuzy. “So we designed a new type of brokerage platform, fueled by simple, engaging, friendly and intuitive tools, to help people grow their skills—and maybe their net worth.  Kapitall Generation represents a major step forward in this mission.” 

 “I am extremely excited to be a part of this significant step in KAPITALL’s evolution,” said Jarrett Lilien, former E*TRADE President and COO, and founding partner of private investment firm Bendigo Partners, LLC, an investor of Kapitall, Inc.  “KAPITALL has realized that the next revolution in online investing is around the user experience.  They are now taking this experience to the next level, transforming the way users think and learn about finance, and offering a whole new way to trade.” 

KAPITALL Generation is a member FINRA/SIPC and acts as an introducing broker to Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company. 

ABOUT KAPITALL

KAPITALL uses the tools of interaction and game design to make the stock market an inviting and exciting place through a revolutionary drag & drop interface.  Its unique visual approach to investing makes it easier and more engaging for all investors—regardless of their sophistication and experience—to research and trade stocks.   Founded in 2008 by a group of software entrepreneurs, interface designers, game producers, stock traders and technologists, KAPITALL, Inc. is based in SoHo, New York.

Follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/kapitall or become a KAPITALL fan on Facebook, www.facebook.com/kapitall.

Securities products and services provided by Kapitall Generation, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  Securities in your account protected up to $500,000. For details, please see www.sipc.org. SIPC coverage does not protect against market loss. 

Kapitall Generation, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kapitall, Inc.

This $5 per trade offer is valid only for the first 5,000 new customers who fund a Kapitall Generation account and place a trade that is executed by March 31, 2012. This offer is applicable only to trades of exchange-listed equity securities and ETFs. This offer is not valid to the following: non-U.S. residents; IRA’s, business, trust or margin accounts, to the extent they are ever offered by Kapitall Generation, and any account closed and reopened under the same registration and/or social security number. Kapitall Generation reserves the right to restrict or revoke making this offer at any time.

Risk Disclosures

System Responses and account connection times may vary due to a variety of factors including trading volumes, market conditions, system performance and other factors.

Kapitall Maui Office

Seattle had it's biggest snow storm in twenty years.  I happened to be spending the week in Maui with my family.  The time difference with New York is five hours and that meant getting up well before sunrise to start research and trading but somehow I managed to survive.  It's a busy time for me as i'm working on setting up portfolios to share with new users as well as building out my new year value portfolio.   

Go to Kapitall Market Notes, search for Neubert and you can watch my progress.  Message me directly inside Kapitall and I'll share my thoughts and trades.  

Below is the view from our balcony at the Ritz-Carlton.

What is SOPA? And Why You Should Care

If you're reading this, chances are you already know that the Internet can't stop talking about SOPA right now.  And you're probably aware of the overwhelmingly negative reaction it's provoked in web giants like Wikipedia, Google, even Facebook; maybe you even signed a petition to kill the Act.  But you may not know what it actually says--and what the consequences actually are.  And as a website that relies on data, our own and other's, Kapitall could be directly affected by its ramifications.  Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo, we summarized a few key points to take away:

What is SOPA anyway?

It's actually two bills: as presented before the House, it's the Stop Online Piracy Act; while the Senate is considering PIPA, an acronym for Protect IP (Intellectual Property).  The idea is to crack down on foreign websites that sell pirated movies and music, as well as other products.

How would SOPA work?

The Justice Department would get new powers to keep US companies from providing funding, advertising or linking to these foreign sites.  They could force a search engine like Google to disable links to these sites, or block users from typing the URLs into their browsers.  

Who stands to benefit from SOPA?

Hollywood studios and record labels, yes, but really anyone who owns content that's being pirated.

That sounds fair enough. So what's the problem?

While it's foreign sites that are the intended targets, the ramifications of SOPA would most certainly be felt here in the US, unfairly targeting sites that unwittingly posted pirated content.  Theoretically, a media company could get a court order against a perfectly innocent site, punishing them by blocking payments and shutting them down.  And payment processors and content providers like YouTube or Visa could essentially bypass the courts altogether if they wanted to shut down a site they deemed guilty of infringement.  Gizmodo, citing Public Knowledge, notes that "Google could easily take it upon itself to delist every viral video site on the internet with a "good faith belief" that they're hosting copyrighted material. Leaving YouTube as the only major video portal." It's a little conspiracy theory… but worth keeping in mind.  

Of course, there are always two sides to every story…  

Traditional media companies like Comcast, News Corp and Viacom, some of the key players fighting for this legislation, feel they've been victimized by Web piracy, and are currently powerless to defend what is rightfully theirs.  Can we blame them for trying?

After yesterday's protests, it's unlikely that SOPA will be able to recover.  But one thing's for certain--we'll all be watching to see how it all plays out. 

By Alicia Sellitti

Neubert in the News: Managing Your Personal Finances

Check out Kapitall co-founder David Neubert's take on New Years resolutions and managing your personal finances.

Click here to watch the video.

Kapitall's New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year Kapitallists!  After the roller coaster ride that was 2011, we're excited to see what 2012 will bring.  And to usher in the new year, we came up with a few financial resolutions Kapitall may be able to help you with.

1. Build your investing confidence

New to the game? Build your skills and boost your confidence: open a Kapitall practice portfolio, and analyze your virtual holdings using our tools.  

2. Get informed (and stay that way)

Stay in the know about financial markets and your holdings.  Read KapitallWire for market news and investing ideas.  And get important updates on the stocks and ETF's you're interested in with Kapitall Alerts.  

3. Make a plan

Make a list of goals and and get your priorities in order for the year.  And to learn from an expert, follow our own trading guru David Neubert as he builds his 2012 portfolio.  Ask questions and get ideas for your own trades!