The canteen grapevine bar has been raised. Usual suspects like Angelina Jolie and Coldplay have made way for Reliance Industries and Infosys. Age of Empires and Counter Strike have been displaced by Moneybhai and other investment games. Investment clubs are emerging from small hostel rooms of B-Schools and engineering colleges across the nation. There has been a considerable rise in the number of teenage students investing and making money in the bull market over last few months.

These clubs act as incubating hubs for these students to interact, brainstorm and analyze stock market trends and ultimately to invest their meager savings. ‘The Wall Street' club at BITS, Pilani is one such club. Large amount of research and analysis is being done here and club members have also come up with their own market prediction software. One unique concept is its own mutual fund where students pour in their pocket money!

Abhishek Humbad Hi. I'm a second-year Electronics Engineering student at BITS, Pilani. I'm from Mumbai where I did my schooling and college. I've participated and excelled in various Olympiads, quizzes and am a National Talent Search Scholar. I enjoy playing soccer, reading non-fiction books especially self-development and finance and love to write in my free time. My dream is to build and lead the world's biggest electronics company some day. Short term goals include a foreign MBA from one of the top B-Schools and putting into action the B-plan I am currently working on.

The IIFT also has an investment club called the ‘Money Multiplier'. It has sector specific research teams and a core decision making team which has the final word on all transactions. On the same lines is Jamnalal Bajaj, Mumbai's investment club in which even the professors are actively involved.

NITIE and FMS have also flagged off their own investment clubs. Apart from this, there are many individual teenvestors across various IIMs and other B-Schools and their number is on the rise.

Thanks to a conditioning of high GDP growth, ambitious Indian companies, a soaring stock market and the feel-good economy in general, undergraduate students have impressions of growth, money and progress everywhere. They have a desire to earn, progress and outdo their elders. And stocks are on top of the priority list of majority of these highly ambitious teens in their quest for fame and money.

On the funny side, this new fad comes with competition and heaps of exaggeration about the profits made at the stock market. It seems that all teenvestors have made big bucks in the bull run, even claiming to better Warren Buffet's record, whereas there are practically no losers. Perhaps, this is what you call the typical teen ‘Show Business'.

In typical showbiz (read Bollywood) style, there is always a fly in the ointment. The growth on-campus investment clubs has put some serious questions on the basic motto and aim of students in universities. There are concerns over young students taking up stocks and neglecting their studies. Protagonists of this phenomenon, however, reiterate the invaluable practical knowledge and hands on experience these students get before entering the industry and real world.

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