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Capital Group Chief Executive Mike Gitlin wants Gen-Z investors recoiling from war-driven commodity trades to start thinking long-term, as the asset management industry races to win over a generation with fundamentally different rules of investing.
Responding to an audience question at CNBC’s Converge Live conference in Singapore on Wednesday, Gitlin said younger investors should approach markets with a long-term wealth-building mindset, rather than “hobby investing,” adding personal interests to one’s portfolio.
The question came from a father in the audience who said his teenage children had objected to his plan to rotate from gold into oil, denouncing it as “profiting from war.” He added that an informal survey at his children’s school found roughly 80% of Gen-Z peers shared the same disinclination.
Whether gold or oil, “neither of them is where they should be thinking about where they’re going to invest their money for the next 75 years,” said Gitlin, who leads Capital Group, the world’s largest active investment manager with $3.3 trillion in assets under management.
