Sydney-based AJ Clores is a 28-year-old investor who has a $2 million net worth, including four properties across the country and more than $500,000 in shares. While investments like these weren’t the way Clores expected to make his money, it was “being smart” and cashing in at the right time that led him to build serious wealth before the age of 30.
Clores made his first $200,000 from a video editing business he started himself during lockdown – then he got lucky with timing. When a major dip happened in the stock market, Clores decided to begin investing.
Soon enough he had added property to his portfolio alongside the stocks, but following the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT) in the budget, he’s scrapped the idea of buying any more.
“Now that the CGT discount is no longer a thing, I kind of see my portfolio as having taken five steps back,” he told Yahoo Finance.
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Clores is living in his family home in Sydney. Despite still continuing his video editing business, it’s no longer his main source of income – that’s derived from his four properties and half a million dollar share portfolio.
It all began 10 years ago when he graduated from high school with dreams, he said, of becoming a famous YouTuber – “the next Mr Beast”, ideally.
While the YouTube career didn’t take off as planned, Clores found a way to avoid the 9-5 he was dreading, working for himself by editing videos for other YouTube creators.
Clores continued this work while studying business management full time at the University of Technology Sydney, but dreaded the idea of working a nine-to-five.
Upon graduating in 2020, which coincided with the start of the Covid-19 lockdowns, Clores decided to “go all in on the video editing business”.
“2020 was a really good year because everyone was in lockdown [and] everyone was making videos,” he said.
With around $200,000 brought in from the business, he took the opportunity of the stock market dip to “invest it all”.
“I couldn’t really spend my money anywhere else, so I just thought, ‘you know what, let me put it all in stocks’.
“It probably wasn’t the smartest idea, it was a very high risk idea, but I thought, you know, I’ve got nothing else to spend it on,” he said.
“From there, I ended up more than doubling my money.”
His stocks were suddenly worth half a million dollars, but Clores “didn’t really know what to do with it”.
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