Taking Lead Role In Investing

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When 16-year-old actress Rachel Fox checks her iPhone between scenes on set, she’s not checking up on the latest Hollywood gossip.

She’s trading stocks.

The Hancock Park resident, known for her role on “Desperate Housewives,” has become a day trader in the last two years and claims to have outperformed the market last year after making 338 trades. So she recently launched FoxonStocks.com, a website with tutorial videos and blog posts aimed at teaching others the fundamentals of the market and investing.

“I want to teach people how it works, not only to be traders,” she said. “I think it’s great for people to be empowered.”

She got into trading after her mother, who has a degree in finance, read her books about investing as a way to teach her to be money savvy.

“I picked up on it and how easy it is to go online, open an account and flip a couple stocks and make a bunch of money,” she said. “I love it.”

She made her first trade in 2011 from an account she opened with a portion of her income from her acting career. Today, she likes to trade stocks with clear trends and avoids popular ones such as Apple Inc. that are more likely to be impacted by speculative investors.

Her first stock was Texas technology company Raystream Inc. She purchased it for about $2 on a tip that it would jump to $10 a share in a few months. That never happened. In fact, the stock has been trading for a quarter of a penny, she said. But the experience taught her a lesson she shares with others: Never take stock tips.

Despite her success in both her chosen careers, she has no plans to trade one for the other. She plans to continue acting and trading well into her future.

– Jacquelyn Ryan