As the Coronavirus rips through the world’s time-tested economies, a certain crop of traders seems to be adapting to the new normal. Compared to mid-March when most countries were recording significantly high Covid-19 cases, months on, most markets are starting to look up. And the recovery is paving the way for the millennials and Gen-Z to mark their territories in a slowed economy, thanks to markets accessibility right from home.
During a recent stakeholders’ conference, trading app Robinhood co-founder and co-CEO Vladimir Tenev noted the high aggression in the trading sector driven by the younger millennials. “We see a lot of buying activity of specifically industries that were impacted by the pandemic,” Tenev said.
The fact is – whether you’re looking at trading Bitcoin on this website or any other, millennials and the gen-z are giving the rest of the market players a run from their money amid the ravaging pandemic.
The numbers tell it all
Trading apps such as PrimeXBT are recording a surge in the number of users in their 20s and 30s scooping deals for specific shares, cryptocurrencies, and commodities. And it’s not just the rising need to survive the harsh economic times that are pushing the younger generation to online investments. Smart investment apps have found innovative ways of making remote investing easy and fun, in ways that appeal to Gen-Z and millennials. Perks range from low to free trading fees coupled with interactive interfaces.
PrimeXBT, for example, offers an ambassador program that allows traders with their communities to earn more from their customer bases or traffic including special offers for their subscribers, payments for leads, and more. Other trading tools such as Robinhood offer video-game themed trading interfaces to enhance user experiences.
A last month survey by investment firm J.P Morgan indicated that the younger cohorts preferred investing more in bitcoin while their older counterparts flooded the gold markets.
“The two cohorts show divergence in their preference for ‘alternative’ currencies,” a team of analysts wrote. “The older cohorts prefer gold while the younger cohorts prefer bitcoin.”
While both bitcoin and commodities markets have soared over the last five months, millennials have also exuded a lot of interest in tech-backed stocks, even as the older generation rushes to dump equity stocks.
According to J.P Morgan, the parallel investment in cryptocurrencies and equities has for months now boosted the correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 index. In return, the correlation between bitcoin and other assets has made the younger generation to view it as a formidable alternative to fiat currencies.
Moving forward
But as hope for a vaccine continues to gather momentum, a shift in the gold prices is starting to be experienced, registering a dip to settle below the $2,000-dollar mark, after a historic jump last month.
“Acting as a measure of market anxiety, gold smashed through the $2,000 per ounce ceiling for the first time in history; four and a half months on from the sub-$1,500 lows seen before the coronavirus crisis took hold of the West, Connor Campbell,” a SpreadEx financial expert said about the record high in a note seen by the Business Insider.
Last week through to this week Bitcoin remained below $11,000 after an aggressive start at the beginning of the month that saw it trade above the $11,000 mark. But considering 10-day sideways since Sep 4, the most valuable cryptocurrency had printed a high of $10,734 by 15 Sep, 06:59 UTC.
In closing, from the past ashes, a new age rises. The world has seen the hurricane of the Covid-19 pandemic and after the devastation, it’s time to settle into the new normal. Millennials and Gen-Z may be killing conventional assets and birthing a new asset class perhaps because most of them failed to adapt. There’s a good reason why Blockbuster isn’t here today as its rivals entertain the world right from home. It was important to envision a situation such as this and prepare for it. As it is, the younger generation was already shifting to more convenient, affordable, and interactive ways of investing years before the Covid-19 era.