Apex Clearing has released its 2021 fourth-quarter investor outlook report detailing the evolving trends amongst Gen Z investors. While last year saw a boom in the meme stock market with young investors pouring money into companies like GameStop Corp (NYSE: GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC), popular industries for Gen Z investors now include electric cars and the "metaverse".
According to the report which analyzed data from more than 1 million Gen Z accounts, AMC has been replaced by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) as the top stock held amongst investors born after 1996, otherwise known as Gen Z. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) took spot number 2, putting AMC in third place. Meanwhile, GameStop moved from the sixth most popular investment to number 11, and Wish's owner, ContextLogic (NASDAQ: WISH), dropped 35 spots to number 56.
On the other hand, electric vehicle manufacturers like Chinese NIO (NYSE: NIO) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) held strong at spots 8 and 17, with newly debuted Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN) snagging the 44th spot on the list of Gen Z investments.
In the world of evolving technology, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: FB), Facebook's parent company, rose in the ranks to spot number 12. Roblox (NASDAQ: RBLX) rose 36 ranks to land at spot number 36. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) held their 4th and 5th place ranks, while AT&T (NYSE: T) rose 22 ranks to spot number 20.
"There's a lot more interest in metaverse," Chief Executive Officer for Apex, Bill Capuzzi, said in an interview. "As more NFT companies become public, we'll probably see them move in to the top 100."
Another popular sector amongst young investors was digital payment platforms, with Paypal Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL) and Block (NYSE: SQ) , formerly Square, taking spots number 19 and 25 respectively.
According to the Apex report, over the next 25 years, roughly $70 trillion in wealth is expected to shift from the Baby Boomers to Millenials and Gen Z. A full list of the 100 most popular investments amongst Gen Z, as well as the changes in those rankings, can be found in the report.
Apex is a fintech platform used by brokers including SoFi, Stash, and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) Group's Marcus.