Shia Labeouf says Wall Street role proved financially lucrative for him

'Transformers' star Shia Labeouf has revealed that after his role in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps he has become quite an expert at investing.

LaBeouf, 23, played a young Wall Street whizzkid opposite Michael Douglas' ruthless Gordon Gekko in the movie, and he prepared for his part by training at one of the world's largest discount brokers, Charles Schwab.

"Before I did anything, before I even met Oliver Stone, I went into the Schwab office... I get out to New York, I meet all these amazing people, and I said, alright, I'm gonna put some money into it," the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

"If I'm ever going to invest, and I've always wanted to, this was the time to do it.

"So I put 12,500 pounds in. And that 20,000 pounds turned into 305,625 pounds. I looked at it yesterday (18Feb10)... I'm pretty good at it," he said.

But LaBeouf admits the big payoff also came with big risks.

"Really, it's who gets the information first... four of the nine guys I was training with got arrested and are in jail now for insider trading," he added.