10-year-old makes 5,000% return after selling GameStop shares he got for Kwanzaa

He plans to invest some of his earnings

10-year-old makes thousands on GameStop shares he received for Kwanzaa (AFP via Getty Images)

A 10-year-old boy has made more than $3,000 after selling GameStop shares he received as a Kwanzaa gift from his mother when he was eight.

Jaydyn Carr, a fifth grader from San Antonio, Texas, has been a video game fan for years, so for Kwanzaa in 2019, his mother, Nina Carr, decided she would use his enthusiasm to teach him about investments.

For the holiday, Nina told CNN that she purchased 10 shares of GameStop at $6.19. She then printed a stock certificate using an online template, which she then framed.

"We were always there two years ago, just buying different video games," she recalled. "I was like: 'I can give him the shares [to] GameStop and give him something tangible to hold on to and that way he can appreciate it that way.'"

According to Nina, after purchasing the gift, she set up alerts on her phone to monitor GameStop’s stock, which she and her son monitored periodically.

However, this week saw Jaydyn able to cash in on his investment for thousands of dollars, after Redditors pushed up the video game retailer’s value, with The New York Times reporting that the value of GameStop’s shares increased 1,700 per cent since December.

Speaking to CNN, Nina said that on Wednesday she noticed her phone going crazy with alerts. When she saw that GameStop’s stock had risen to $350, she ran to inform Jaydyn, who was doing virtual school work in his room.

The choice was easy for the fifth grader, who told the outlet: “I wanted to sell it then and there because I knew it could drop in seconds.”

Jaydyn ended up selling the stock for about $320 per share, for a total of almost $3,200 - a return of more than 5,000 per cent, according to The Times.

Of the successful trading, the 10-year-old told The Times that he felt “shocked and excited at the same time”.

As for what he will do with his earnings, Jaydyn said he will be putting $2,200 into his savings and plans to invest the remaining $1,000.

"Long-term investing is important because that is how I got this money," he said, with his mother adding: “He’s definitely ready to jump full force into the market.”