Most financial mistakes aren't made out of greed. They're made out of ignorance or worse, out of peer pressure. This time, financial advisor Joe DeLisi sits down with his 17-year-old daughter Amelia to talk about something she's already seeing among her friends: day trading. What they uncover is a pattern that affects young adults of every generation. The dangerous combination of boredom, apps, dopamine, and money.
If you're a parent, a young adult, or simply someone who wants to understand what's really going on in the minds of the next generation of investors, this conversation is worth your full attention. You can listen to the full episode here.
The Sports Parent Problem — And Why It Shows Up With Money
You've seen it at the baseball diamond or the wrestling mat: parents who overload their kids with gear, travel teams, and pressure. Not because the kid is asking for it, but because the parent is trying to make up for what they never had.
The same pattern is now playing out with money. When parents reach their 40s or 50s, having never learned about investing, they often feel behind. And instead of working on their own financial literacy, they push their kids, sometimes too hard, sometimes too fast, into a world they're not ready for.
There's a real difference between introducing a young person to sound financial habits and pressuring them to trade stocks before they've finished high school. One builds a foundation. The other builds anxiety and risk.
What Amelia Noticed: "The Guys Are All Trading"
Unprompted, before the cameras even rolled, Amelia told her dad what she was seeing among her peers. Boys her age (17, 18) are all on trading apps. She didn't know exactly what it was. She described it simply: "Some sort of transaction with money, and there's a risk to it."
Joe's response? "It's gambling."
That framing isn't accidental. He points out that many of the most popular trading apps now exist on the same platform as sports betting. You can bet on the Chiefs, buy Tesla stock, and check your balance all from the same app. The psychological design of these platforms is intentional: they are built to trigger the same reward loops as gambling.
Why Young Men Are Especially Vulnerable
Joe is direct about a pattern he sees across all age groups: men are more aggressive investors. They chase returns, take larger risks, and are more susceptible to the "I made money on this stock" narrative, which conveniently never includes the four other positions that lost.
Women, in his experience, are far more disciplined. They think about downside risk. They're more focused on budgeting, cash flow, insurance, and worst-case planning. That's not a stereotype, it's a pattern backed by decades of behavioral finance research.
For young men specifically, trading apps tap into the same part of the brain that makes video games compelling. Amelia put it plainly: they can sit on the couch, tap away just like a game, and get that adrenaline rush. Win or lose, the dopamine hit comes just from the action.
Trading vs. Day Trading: What's the Difference?
Amelia asks the question a lot of people are too embarrassed to ask: is day trading different from trading? Joe breaks it down clearly.
Trading typically involves taking a position in a stock or market segment, like healthcare or technology, and holding it for weeks or months, usually under a year.
Day trading means entering and exiting a position within the same trading day. It became particularly visible during the meme stock frenzy involving companies like GameStop and AMC, where prices would swing wildly intraday and people tried to profit from the volatility.
In both cases, the young people Amelia describes are not analyzing company fundamentals, cash flows, or management teams. They're buying names they've heard of and hoping for the best. That's not investing. That's speculation with real money.
The Dopamine Trap: Why You Don't Hear About the Losses
One of the most insightful moments in the episode comes when Amelia makes a quiet but powerful observation: "I do hear mostly positive things. No one's going to tell you they lost all their money."
This is the social media version of survivorship bias. The wins get posted. The losses stay private. And so, every 17-year-old watching their feed sees a constant stream of people profiting from trades, with no corresponding feed of people quietly losing their savings.
Joe connects this to what researchers call the dopamine loop. The brain chemical hit that comes from risk-taking, regardless of outcome. You get dopamine when you win. But you also get a hit just from taking the risk. This is why gambling is addictive. And it's why trading apps designed to feel like games are particularly dangerous for young, developing brains.
What Responsible Investing Actually Looks Like at This Age
Rather than leaving the conversation at "don't do it," Joe explains exactly how Amelia's own investments are structured, and it's about as far from day trading as you can get.
Her portfolio is 95% stocks and 5% bonds, allocated across tens of thousands of companies worldwide, including the United States, Brazil, India, Canada, large companies and small ones alike. Joe didn't pick a single holding. He doesn't decide when to buy or sell individual positions.
What they're doing is buying broad, globally diversified markets and holding them for the long term. It's the same approach endorsed by the world's most rigorous financial research, including decades of evidence from index fund investing. It's not exciting. There's no dopamine hit. But as Amelia's balance grows, the results speak for themselves.
For a deeper look at how to start investing as a young adult, see our companion guide: Personal Finance Tips for Young Adults: What to Know Before 30.
If You're a Parent Reading This
Joe's message to parents is worth repeating: if your child is 17, 21, or even 30, it is never too early to have an honest conversation about money. Not a lecture. A conversation.
His episode with Amelia is the first time they've ever discussed day trading and gambling with money directly. She already had a gut sense that it wasn't a great idea. She just needed a framework for why.
That's the role parents and advisors can play. Not to ban apps or control decisions, but to build financial literacy early, so the next time a 17-year-old sees their friends trading on their phones, they have a framework for evaluating what they're really looking at.
A Simple Framework for Young Adults Curious About Investing
- Understand what you're doing before you do it. Trading apps are designed to be fun. That doesn't mean they're a good financial decision.
- Build an emergency fund first. 3 to 6 months of expenses in a secure account before any money goes into the market.
- Start with index funds, not individual stocks. Low-cost, diversified, and proven over decades. There's a reason the world's best investors recommend this approach.
- Think about the losses you don't see. For every friend celebrating a win on a trading app, there are four quiet losses that never get posted.
- Talk to someone who knows what they're doing. Even one conversation with a qualified financial professional can prevent years of expensive mistakes.
The Takeaway
The most important insight from this episode isn't about stocks or trading apps. It's about awareness. Amelia had already sensed that what her friends were doing felt more like gambling than investing. She just needed the language to understand it.
That's what financial education does. It doesn't take away the appeal of risk; it gives you the tools to evaluate whether that risk is worth taking. And for most 17-year-olds with $500 on a trading app, it almost certainly is not.
Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to Young Adult Financial Series - Part 2 on Spotify.
If you have questions about investing, saving, or building a financial plan that fits your goals, now is the time to start the conversation.
Connect with Joe DeLisi today to schedule a conversation and take the next step toward financial confidence.
Registered Representative and Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS). OSJ: 5280 CARROLL CANYON ROAD, SUITE 300, SAN DIEGO CA, 92121, 619-6846400. Securities products and advisory services offered through PAS, member FINRA, SIPC. Financial Representative of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), New York, NY. PAS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian. OLIVE HARBOR is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian. Insurance products offered through WestPac Wealth Partners and Insurance Services, LLC, a DBA of WestPac Wealth Partners, LLC. CA Insurance License #0D34103, AR Insurance License #2195027 | 8917981.1 Exp. 05/28