Shia LaBeouf made $300,000 in two-and-a-half months by trading with his own money, in the hope that it would prepare him for his role in 'Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps'. The 24-year-old stars alongside Michael Douglas in the sequel to Oliver Stone'S 1987 classic 'Wall Street', and he began investing in order to learn more about the business and its inner workings.
LaBeouf told the UK's Daily Mail, "'I knew nothing about finance coming into this movie, so I had to learn everything from scratch. I walked into Schwab Investment Services and asked them to walk me through everything. I opened up an account with $20,000 of my own money and started trading, and the value of the account went up to $300,000 in two and a half months". Despite the recent recession, the 'Transformers' star refused to criticise the bankers, saying, "Whatever people say, I do think there is a good side to Wall Street".
In the movie, which was released in the US on 24th September 2010, LaBeouf plays a young trader who forms a friendship with Douglas' 'Gordon Gekko'. BBC News reports that the movie topped the North American box office in its first weekend, taking an estimated $19m.