You have to start somewhere, right? And the stock and crypto markets are no different.
While some jump in blindly, others diligently do their research — and of course, there are those who land somewhere between those boundaries.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and Bridgewater Associates founder and co-Chief Investment Officer Ray Dalio bought their first stocks before they were teenagers — and long before online trading platforms were around to make it easier to buy and sell stock or cryptocurrency.
Dalio Tees Off: Dalio bought his first shares when he was 12 years old in the late 1950s. He earned his money as a caddy at The Links Golf Club, saving enough to buy $300 worth of shares in Northeast Airlines, a Boston-based air carrier.
Why did he buy it? According to a Reddit "Ask Me Anything," he had heard golfers talk about it, then his father, a jazz musician, introduced him to a broker who could help Dalio buy the stock.
"I bought it for the stupid reason that it was the only company I'd heard of that was selling for less than $5 a share, so I thought that if it went up, I would make more money," said Dalio. "I got lucky because it was about to go bankrupt and then was acquired by another company, and then I was hooked on playing the market."
(Howard Hughes acquired control of Northeast in 1962 which sent the stock price up; the airline merged with Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) in 1972.)
Dalio also said in the AMA, "… that life is an adventure in which making mistakes and knowing how to learn from that is the best part."
Is Buffett Sentimental? "The Oracle of Omaha" purchased his first stock at age 11. He bought six shares — three for himself, three for his sister — of Cities Service Company stock for $38 per share. The company soon fell to $27, but went back up to $40. The Buffetts sold — but it was too soon: shares went up shortly after to more than $200 a share. Obviously, this didn't stop Buffett, but there is an interesting footnote to this.
Cities Service started in Oklahoma in 1910 as a public utility company. It segued into the oil and gas industry through purchases and in 1940 the U.S. government told the company to make a choice between utilities or oil and gas, the latter of which won out. In 1982, it became a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY), a company Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway recently purchased a sizable interest in, on the opposite side of investor Carl Icahn, whose Icahn Enterprises (NASDAQ:IEP) sold his interest.
Who knows Buffett's reason for the recent Occidental purchase — good investment or sentimental reason, or both?
See Also: Icahn Vs. Buffett: Two Sides Of An Occidental Petroleum Trade
Checking in With the Zingers: When asked about their first stock — or crypto — the Zinger Nation chimed in via Benzinga Pro and Twitter.
Benzinga Pro user TraderSam's first stock was General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), followed by the purchase of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in 1993, selling it in 2010.
Rufftraders's first stock was Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) for $30 a share — it has since been sold because Rufftrader is "always building."
According to Rmaetani, first purchases included Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB) — which are now sold. The first crypto was Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) in 2017 — some they used to trade or for ICOs, and some they still hold on to.
Shawn's first purchase was NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), which was sold "after a day for a $50 profit."
Over at Benzinga's Twitter account, it's crypto season, with a sprinkling of stocks thrown in.
Bitcoin first-timers include David Gokshtein (@davidgokhstein) with no year mentioned when he purchased it, and Richard Judge (@RichardJudge17), who still owns the crypto.
The first stock Mephisto.loopring.eth (@OxMephisto420) bought was Cenntro Electric Group Ltd (NASDAQ:CENN), when it had the ticker symbol of NAKD in 2021, then "sold because it was a slow rug with no fundamentals." Bitcoin was the first crypto, purchased in 2016.
Rob (@FloridaRepNY) said Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC:GBTC) were his first forays.
DiscoRaj's (@DiscoRaj143) first stock was GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) and first crypto was Bitcoin — neither of which they have anymore, selling to buy Floki Inu (CRYPTO: FLOKI), because "… it has the best potential for 100x from here!"
Though Floki Inu had the most dedicated followers answering the crowdsource tweet, other crypto first-time favorites for users included Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB), Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Baby Doge Coin (CRYPTO: BABYDOGE).
But of course, there are those who turn to other forms of investing their money: Benzinga writer Phil Hall chimed in with his first stock — Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) — then said he "makes more money betting on the horse races than playing the market."
