17 Stocks Your Kids Will Love

Gift-giving occasions are the perfect time to turn presents into economic lessons.

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Gift-giving occasions are the perfect time to turn presents into economic lessons. So when Vita Nelson's 15-year-old grandson asked for athletic shoes, she gave him stock in shoe retailer Foot Locker instead. “I told him that if he continued to fund his account, it would keep him and his family in shoes for a long time,” she says.

Unlike toys and clothes, which kids will break or grow out of, gifts of wisely chosen stocks will appreciate in value and provide an appreciation of how both Wall Street and Main Street work. “I wanted him to think about not only making money by working on his own but also about using other people’s resources to make money, which is what you do when you invest,” says Nelson, editor of DirectInvesting.com. Two good places to keep kids’ shares are custodial accounts and Roth IRAs.

Here are 17 stocks in seven categories—from toys to entertainment—that should both appeal to kids’ interests and make for good long-term investments.

Disclaimer

*All share prices and returns as of December 17, 2013

Kathy Kristof
Contributing Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kristof, editor of SideHusl.com, is an award-winning financial journalist, who writes regularly for Kiplinger's Personal Finance and CBS MoneyWatch. She's the author of Investing 101, Taming the Tuition Tiger and Kathy Kristof's Complete Book of Dollars and Sense. But perhaps her biggest claim to fame is that she was once a Jeopardy question: Kathy Kristof replaced what famous personal finance columnist, who died in 1991? Answer: Sylvia Porter.