CommSec Pulse: Generation Z

How Gen Z are managing their finances

Growing up in a digital-first world shaped by economic uncertainty, rising living and property costs and rapid technological change, Gen Z is focused on building financial security while maintaining flexibility and independence. Many Gen Zers are balancing study, early career goals, housing affordability challenges and lifestyle aspirations, while looking for ways to grow their wealth over time.

Financial wellbeing for Gen Z is centred on creating strong foundations for the future. Key priorities include:

• Building savings and emergency funds
• Growing wealth through investing
• Managing debt and everyday costs
• Achieving long-term goals such as home ownership
• Maintaining financial flexibility and independence
• Aligning financial decisions with personal values and priorities

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Gen Z is CommSec’s second-smallest trading generation

CommSec’s trading data shows that 19% of all our active investors are Gen Z, the second-smallest of the generational cohorts (excluding the Greatest and Silent generations, both born pre-1946) and only slightly larger than Baby Boomers. But while Baby Boomers hold the biggest share of the wealth pie ($128.6bn out of $281.2bn total across all six generations, or around 46%), Gen Z hold the smallest (excluding the Greatest Generation), of $4.6bn or ~1.6%.

The bottom line

The challenges of an increasingly unaffordable property market have made the alternative of securities trading more appealing to Gen Z than perhaps any other generational cohort. Gen Z investors are digitally savvy, globally connected, and focused on building wealth early while balancing flexibility and long-term goals. Growing up with easy access to financial information and digital investing platforms, they tend to be confident exploring a range of opportunities beyond Australia.

While many Aussie Gen Z investors are drawn to global markets, particularly Nasdaq-listed US tech securities, they also recognise the value of Australian-listed companies as part of a diversified portfolio that supports long-term financial growth. But whether local or global, it’s clear ETFs is the name of the game for the youngest cohort.

To learn more about how to invest in global companies, see International Trading.

Across the generations

CommSec’s analysis of our customers’ profiles and activities across FY26 has uncovered some fascinating insights into Aussie traders and trading behaviour broadly, regardless of their generation. Among our key findings:

• More Australians are investing, both domestically and especially internationally We saw growth of 11.5% in trading customers over the past fiscal year, with trading up 27% on FY25 and traded value up 33%. New domestic stock accounts were up 10% and new international accounts up 16%

• Aussie traders are more engaged overall The proportion of our customers who completed a trade in the 12 months to May ticked up by 0.2% compared to the same timeframe to November 2025. We also saw more people trade within the first 90 days of opening their trading account

• Women are a bigger force in the trading market than ever before Female investors are driving a bigger share of new money into markets, at 42% of first-time investors in FY26, up from 36.3% two years ago. They now represent 34% of our active investors, up slightly from FY25, and they tend to trade more in ETFs than their male counterparts, who generally trade more in direct equities

• Investors are getting younger, especially first-time investors Traded value for our under-40 customers increased 54.9%, compared with 30.3% for customers aged 40+. The under‑40 share of first‑time investor activity climbed from 63.2% in FY24 to 66.2% in FY26