TikTok for trading tips? Millennials and Generation Z find their investment muse

Young investors have flocked to the platform for investment guidance, with videos carrying investing or finance hashtags drawing hundreds of millions of viewers

Although finance experts have warned about unlicensed investment ‘gurus’ on TikTok, others are using the platform to give basic financial advice

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Chin Xi Yuan, founder of the blog No Money Lah, uses TikTok to answer questions on topics like robo-advisers and dividends. Photo: Handout

Published: 8:49am, 1 Jan 2021Updated: 9:51pm, 1 Jan 2021

Alex Rawi Ruto is a 16-year-old high school student in Depok city, just outside the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, who started investing in mutual funds this year after squirrelling away part of his 100,000 rupiah (US$7) monthly allowance.

He has since invested 600,000 rupiah into several mutual funds through Indonesia-based robo-adviser investment platform Bibit, from which he has earned 34,000 rupiah, and he is planning to turn his sights to investing mainly in individual stocks, although not until he turns 17.

“I’m still studying and learning more about them,” he said about stocks, adding that his ultimate goal is to ensure a stream of passive income to someday become financially independent.

Peter Yong, the founder of Mr Money TV, uses TikTok to educate his viewers on the basics of finance. Photo: Handout

To achieve this ambition, he has turned to social media platform TikTok, where financial investment guidance abounds. His TikTok feed is filled with self-declared finance “gurus”, all sharing a myriad of information – from taking investment-related questions from viewers to daily market analyses – all via short videos lasting under 60 seconds.

TikTok started out as a platform for generation Z and millennials to share lip-synching videos and memes, but its videos carrying an investing hashtag have drawn over 1.06 billion views, while videos with the finance hashtag have around 1.1 billion views.

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