Tiffany James, a 27-year-old African American woman from New York City, turned a $10,000 stock market investment into $2 million in less than two years. She later founded Modern Blk Girl, which educates women on investing strategies to help them build wealth.
James was struggling to make ends meet in 2019 when she decided to invest in Tesla stock on the advice of a coworker. At the time, the shares were only $60 to $70 each. She decided to take a chance and began gradually investing $4,000.
James, then 25, put $10,000 into long-term LEAPs, S&P SPDR exchange-traded funds, and the stock market, including Tesla and semiconductor chip stocks. She has since increased her portfolio to $2 million.
She did notice, however, that white men continue to dominate the investment and trading community. James, the daughter of Jamaican and Haitian immigrants, set out to change that with Modern Blk Girl. She provides practical investing advice that is both encouraging and approachable in this online community. She is happy to share her knowledge with others, having helped over 225,000 women.
“If you educate a woman, you educate a village,” she told CNBC. “If a mom starts investing, she tells her kids.”
James advises those who want to get started to constantly get ready to invest and think broadly about where to put the investments. She also encourages women not to be afraid, saying that “investing is a necessity, not an option” and it will open doors to greater financial freedom.
“There are scarier things we deal with every day as women,” James said, emphasizing that by making money in the market, “We can live the lives we want to live.”