Buying shares: Open a share portfolio without being of legal age

Consent of guardian required

On his ministry’s “Future Day” in August 2023, Christian Linder (FDP) gave young adults a crash course in finance. There he spoke out in favor of private pension provision and stock investments, as the Germany editorial network reports. For Linder, the importance of the topic is clear: “If you start making the right decisions early on, you have an advantage. Over time, they have an impact and make a huge difference.”

More and more young adolescents seem to be becoming aware of this. The drawback here, however, is that it is not possible to open a stock portfolio on your own until you are of legal age. Nevertheless, it is possible to open such a portfolio with the consent of the parents or legal guardian, as the Finanzschotte portal reports. This is then in the name of the young person, and the power of attorney is automatically transferred when they reach the age of majority, but until then the support of at least one legal guardian is required. Since you are considered to have limited legal capacity between the ages of eight and 18, the legal guardian must buy or sell the shares on behalf of the portfolio holder.

It is important to note that the money still belongs to the account holder. The legal guardian is also not allowed to freely decide on transactions, but must always act in the interests of the young person, according to Finanzschotte. The portal aktien-welten.de is also in favor of this possibility and sees early investment as a “foundation for the future”.

Low-risk investment strategies make sense

First of all, you should be aware of the risks of the stock market. Regardless of the level of experience or expert status, it is only possible to a limited extent to make predictions about future changes. Complete security cannot therefore be guaranteed. However, various investment strategies differ in the level of risk. Some are very risky and increase the hope of high payouts, others are more long-term. Due to the limited financial possibilities of students or trainees, Finanzschlotte recommends targeting long-term investment strategies.

For example, the savings plan can offer a good option, according to the portal. Offers can therefore be found at various banks, for example. There you regularly invest a certain amount in selected stocks or index funds. This amount is never exceeded or exceeded, but the shares available at this fixed amount change depending on the share price. Here too, however, investing in individual securities is riskier than the broad risk diversification of the funds, according to Finanzschotte. The portal therefore recommends investing in index funds, so-called exchange traded funds (ETFs). In this way, you invest in different companies that can – but don’t have to – balance out each other’s losses. Because here too, there is of course a certain residual risk, as it goes on to say.

Practice makes perfect

Ultimately, it is important to gain experience because this is the only way to find out in the long term which investment strategy is best. According to Finanzschlotte, various trading applications that are used to trade real securities but also have a demo version can be helpful here. This makes it possible to use all functions and instruments, but in a kind of simulation in which only “play money” is used. This allows you to try out possible investment strategies and learn to recognize the connections between important influencing factors such as news, shareholder meetings, quarterly reports and price developments.

Editorial team finanzen.net