• by Aaron Baar , November 12, 2008

Although they have less experience (and less money) to invest, the members of Generation Y are more likely to make their own investing decisions than members of other generations.

According to Scottrade, an online investing firm, 51% of Generation Y makes their own investment decisions, compared with 40% of the total population. Only 5% of Gen Y has someone else making their investment decisions, compared with 10% of the total population.

Furthermore, nearly every Gen Y investor thinks he or she is at least as good as, if not better than, average investors. More than a third--34%--say their investment decisions are better than average, compared with 25% of the total population.

"Their comfort with the Web is a driver for Gen Y to be trading online," Chris X. Moloney, chief marketing officer for Scottrade tells Marketing Daily. "It largely has to do with how they access information and how they use the Web."

Indeed, 79% of Gen Y investors are using financial Web sites to get information, compared with 48% of the total population. Not surprisingly, the self-investing rates also decrease with age. While 51% of Gen Y and 45% of Gen X investors say they make all their own decisions, only 37% of Boomers and 32% of seniors say the same.

"There appears to be a higher level of confidence among Gen Y than the other guys," Moloney says. "When you combine that [with their independent decision-making] there appears to be a generational shift going on."

Moloney notes that most Gen Y investors are only at the beginning of their earning cycles, and don't have as much to invest. Working with smaller sums of money may give them more confidence to make their own decisions, Moloney says. "The question becomes, as they get older, will that trend stay the same?" he says. "You would think it would be somewhere in between. Clearly, the percentage of Gen Y [investors] who are doing it on their own would suggest that would be the future."

To prepare for that future, Scottrade--an online investing house--has begun to enhance the educational components of its online offerings, Moloney says. The company is also anticipating more mobile investing, he says. "We have to grow with the needs of our consumers," he says.