TEENS TAKING STOCK; YOUNG INVESTORS FIND CHALLENGE IN TRYING TO OUTSMART MARKET.

Byline: Chris Sieroty Staff Writer

At an age when most boys are only interested in video games, 12-year-old Joseph Shaposhnik began collecting stocks, investing $900 in shares of Microsoft.

Four years later, the 16-year-old junior at Chatsworth High School is founder and president of the school's stock market club, and his initial investment in the software giant is worth about $7,000.

``My dad at the time was slowly investing in the market,'' Shaposhnik said. ``I was curious about it and I told him that Microsoft came up every time I booted my computer. I told him let's buy it.''

Shaposhnik and his fellow stock club members are part of a growing trend among teen-agers who are taking an interest in Wall Street at an age when they can't even vote or legally gamble. According to a recent survey by the Washington-based American Savings Educational Council, 33 percent of kids ages 12 to 17 nationwide are taking an active interest in the stock market.

``More and more young people are learning the principals of investing,'' said the council President Don M. Blandin. ``And more and more - instead of stashing their money in a piggy bank or savings account - are investing it in mutual funds and stocks.''

A year after his first stock purchase, Shaposhnik used his Bar Mitzvah money to open an online brokerage account with Ameritrade, which is overseen by his father, Len. My parents are ``very encouraged that I'm interested in the financial markets and planning for my future,'' he said.

What's his investment strategy? Buy companies you know. For example, his portfolio includes Costco, America Online, the Ninety Nine Cents Stores and Yahoo. ``My family always goes to Costco, and we found a lot of value in their warehouses,'' he said.

The teen-ager believes that to make money on Wall Street you have to buy a company's stock for the long-term. ``If you find a good company you might as well keep it,'' he said.

Shaposhnik now wants to share his knowledge about the stock market with his classmates. Last year, he and two of his best friends, Michael Matsumura and Yoni Sauerbrun, both 16, formed the Chatsworth High School Stock Club.

Shaposhnik says he and his friends formed the club to teach other students about finances and make them smarter when it comes to handling their money. ``They make me smarter in other ways, and I make them smarter about stocks,'' he said. ``I hope in 10 years they will be as smart as investors twice their age.''

The club meets every Friday during the semester and is sponsored by Gary L. Wiessner, a business teacher at Chatsworth High.

Wiessner, who developed the school's Academy of Business, says his role is to offer advice and guidance to club members, not dictate their decisions. ``I will listen to them and then step in and give them the pitfalls. I'll give them real life examples of where I've lost money and where I went wrong,'' he said. ``I am trying to pass on my own personal experiences.''

This semester the club will hold its first stock picking contest. Shaposhnik says club members may choose to join a group or do it by themselves. Students must pick four stocks with a fictitious $10,000, but no stock shall exceed more than 30 percent of their entire portfolio.

``The idea is to get them interested in the stock market,'' he said, with the goal being that by the end of the school year the club's 25 members would have the knowledge and confidence to each open their own brokerage accounts.

Wiessner hopes the students will have a greater understanding of how the economy works by the end of the school year. ``They may not all invest in stocks, but they're going to understand what drives business, what business is about and how they as an employee have a stake to make sure the business succeeds,'' he said.

Meanwhile, the demand by both educators and parents for information designed for use by teens has been so great that the National Association of Investors Corp. has partnered with Dallas-based South-Western Educational Publisher to release a text book for use by high school teachers, said Jeff Fox, director of NAIC's Investment Education Institute in Madison Heights, Mich.

The text book, which its publishers hope will explain finances in a way teen-agers can understand, is expected to be in classrooms nationwide next fall, Fox said.

As for his future, Shaposhnik says he would like to become a portfolio manager after graduating from college, preferably Stanford University in Northern California.

``I think in the future you will see Joseph probably as a pretty successful banker or financial manager,'' said Wiessner.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Joseph Shaposhnik, 16, a junior at Chatsworth High School, poses with members of an investment club he started.

(2 -- color) Joseph Shaposhnik, 16, speaks to members of a lunchtime investment club he started at Chatsworth High School.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer