Dude did it right
High school student scores $72 million playing stock market
By Laura Italiano
Published: Dec 15, 2014 6:20 a.m. ET
SHARE
He’s the teen wolf of Wall Street.
A kid from Queens has made tens of millions of dollars — by trading stocks on his lunch breaks at Stuyvesant High School, New York magazine reports in its Monday issue.
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Mohammed Islam is only 17 and still months away from graduating — but worth a rumored $72 million. “The high eight figures,” is as specific as the shy and modest teen would get when asked his net worth.
Islam bought himself a BMW but doesn’t have a license to drive it. And he rented a Manhattan apartment, though his parents, immigrants from the Bengal region of South Asia, won’t let him move out of the house yet.
Still, the cherubic prodigy is living, and dreaming, large.
“What makes the world go round?” Islam asked in the interview, explaining his preference for trading and investment over startups. “Money. If money is not flowing, if businesses don’t keep going, there’s no innovation, no products, no investments, no growth, no jobs.”
Islam and a pair of other young, Wall Street wolf-cub buddies eat regularly at hot spot Morimoto, where they enjoy $400 caviar and fresh-squeezed apple juice.
They hope to start a hedge fund in June, after Islam turns 18 and can get his broker-dealer license.
“Mo’s our maestro,” one of the kids explained.
The three pals intend to make a billion dollars by next year. All while attending college. “But it’s not just about the money,” Islam told the mag, which ranked his spectacular success story as No. 12 in its 10th annual “Reasons to Love New York” issue.
“We want to create a brotherhood. Like, all of us who are connected, who are in something together, who have influence.”
“Like the Koch brothers,” he added, referring to sibling oil magnates Charles and David, worth $40 billion each.
Islam’s biggest inspiration, though, is Paul Tudor Jones, a billionaire hedge-funder and private asset manager from Connecticut who ranks as 108th-richest American, according to Forbes.
Battered by losses, Jones would jump back in the game again and again. It was a lesson Islam found instructive when, while dabbling in penny stocks at age 9, he lost a chunk of the money he’d made tutoring. Islam swore off trading, realizing, “I didn’t have the balls for it,” he said.
Fortunately, he turned to studying modern finance, reading up on the titans of trading and ultimately finding inspiration in Jones. “I had been paralyzed by my loss,” Islam remembered of his 9-year-old self.
“But [Jones] was able to go back to it, even after losing thousands of dollars over and over,” he said.
And while Islam still needs to rely on dad to chauffeur him on inspirational drives past the magnate’s Greenwich mansion, he’s quick to quote from the guru whom he credits with getting him back in the game and making him “who I am today.”
“Paul Tudor Jones says, ‘You learn more from your losses than from your gains.’ ”
See this report at New York Post’s website.
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Update:
http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius-investor-made-it-all-up/
It’s been a tough month for factchecking. After the Rolling Stone campus rape story unraveled, readers of all publications can be forgiven for questioning the process by which Americans get our news. And now it turns out that another blockbuster story is —to quote its subject in an exclusive Observer interview—”not true.”
Monday’s edition of New York magazine includes an irresistible story about a Stuyvesant High senior named Mohammed Islam who had made a fortune investing in the stock market. Reporter Jessica Pressler wrote regarding the precise number, “Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the “’high eight figures.’” The New York Post followed up with a story of its own, with the fat figure playing a key role in the headline: “High school student scores $72M playing the stock market.”
And now it turns out, the real number is … zero.
In an exclusive interview with Mr. Islam and his friend Damir Tulemaganbetov, who also featured heavily in the New York story, the baby faced boys who dress in suits with tie clips came clean. Swept up in a tide of media adulation, they made the whole thing up.
Speaking at the offices of their newly hired crisis pr firm, 5WPR, and handled by a phalanx of four, including the lawyer Ed Mermelstein of RheemBell & Mermelstein, Mr. Islam told a story that will be familiar to just about any 12th grader—a fib turns into a lie turns into a rumor turns into a bunch of mainstream media stories and invitations to appear on CNBC.
Here’s how it happened.
Observer: What was your first contact with the New York magazine reporter?
Mohammed Islam: My friend’s father worked at New York magazine and he had the reporter contact me. Then she [Jessica Pressler] called me.
You seem to be quoted saying “eight figures.” That’s not true, is it?
No, it is not true.
Is there ANY figure? Have you invested and made returns at all?
No.
So it’s total fiction?
Yes.
Are you interested in investing? How did you get this reputation?
I run an investment club at Stuy High which does only simulated trades.
If you had been playing with real money, would you have done really well?
The simulated trades percentage was extremely high relative to the S&P.
Where did Jessica Pressler come up with the $72 million figure?
I honestly don’t know. The number’s a rumor.
She said ‘have you made $72 million’?
[I led her to believe] I had made even more than $72 million on the simulated trades.
At this point the PR reps jumped in with Law & Order style objections. A conference outside the room ensued. Back into the room came Mr. Islam.
All I can say is for the simulated trades, I was very successful. The returns were incredible and outperformed the S&P.
Damir, tell me where you fit into this.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: Well, I got excited by this whole trading thing and I said hey, let me get on board. I heard about this article coming out and Mohammed invited me and I met Jessica.
But you guys are pals outside of this?
We go to social gatherings and friends’ places.
Are you into stockpicking as well?
I haven’t been into it but I’m interested.
Mohammed, you’re from Queens and you go to this elite public high school. Is this a hobby of your parents as well or would you be the first person in your family to pursue high finance?
Mohammed Islam: In my immediate family, just me.
So what did your parents think when they’re reading that you’ve got $72 million?
Mohammed Islam: Honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she’d never talk to me. Their morals are that if I lie about it and don’t own up to it then they can no longer trust me. … They knew it was false and they basically wanted to kill me and I haven’t spoken to them since.
You haven’t? Where did you sleep last night?
Mohammed Islam: At a friend’s house. But we didn’t sleep.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: We stayed awake all night. We’ve been checking out news all over the world.
Are your friends blowing up your phones?
Damir Tulemaganbetov: He had 297 unread messages and 190 LinkedIn. All the friends shared it.
Mohammed Islam: It was hyped up beyond belief.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: We were at CNBC. That’s why we’re dressed up. But we were there and literally in the building stressing out. We had 20 minutes. Then we three times asked them could we have 20 seconds to talk?
[The boys ended up cancelling the CNBC appearance.]
Where do you go from here?
Damir Tulemaganbetov: Socially, people will be mad about it. But we’re sorry. Especially to our parents. Like my dad would read this and be like ‘Oh My God’ because he’s a very humble man and I portrayed him like a bad father.
Mohammed Islam: At school, first things first. I am incredibly sorry for any misjudgment and any hurt I caused. The people I’m most sorry for is my parents. I did something where I can no longer gain their trust. I have one sister, two years younger, and we don’t really talk.
...
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusi...genius-investor-made-it-all-up/#ixzz3M4DlBVb0
Follow us: @newyorkobserver on Twitter | newyorkobserver on Facebook
High school student scores $72 million playing stock market
By Laura Italiano
Published: Dec 15, 2014 6:20 a.m. ET
SHARE
He’s the teen wolf of Wall Street.
A kid from Queens has made tens of millions of dollars — by trading stocks on his lunch breaks at Stuyvesant High School, New York magazine reports in its Monday issue.
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Mohammed Islam is only 17 and still months away from graduating — but worth a rumored $72 million. “The high eight figures,” is as specific as the shy and modest teen would get when asked his net worth.
Islam bought himself a BMW but doesn’t have a license to drive it. And he rented a Manhattan apartment, though his parents, immigrants from the Bengal region of South Asia, won’t let him move out of the house yet.
Still, the cherubic prodigy is living, and dreaming, large.
“What makes the world go round?” Islam asked in the interview, explaining his preference for trading and investment over startups. “Money. If money is not flowing, if businesses don’t keep going, there’s no innovation, no products, no investments, no growth, no jobs.”
Islam and a pair of other young, Wall Street wolf-cub buddies eat regularly at hot spot Morimoto, where they enjoy $400 caviar and fresh-squeezed apple juice.
They hope to start a hedge fund in June, after Islam turns 18 and can get his broker-dealer license.
“Mo’s our maestro,” one of the kids explained.
The three pals intend to make a billion dollars by next year. All while attending college. “But it’s not just about the money,” Islam told the mag, which ranked his spectacular success story as No. 12 in its 10th annual “Reasons to Love New York” issue.
“We want to create a brotherhood. Like, all of us who are connected, who are in something together, who have influence.”
“Like the Koch brothers,” he added, referring to sibling oil magnates Charles and David, worth $40 billion each.
Islam’s biggest inspiration, though, is Paul Tudor Jones, a billionaire hedge-funder and private asset manager from Connecticut who ranks as 108th-richest American, according to Forbes.
Battered by losses, Jones would jump back in the game again and again. It was a lesson Islam found instructive when, while dabbling in penny stocks at age 9, he lost a chunk of the money he’d made tutoring. Islam swore off trading, realizing, “I didn’t have the balls for it,” he said.
Fortunately, he turned to studying modern finance, reading up on the titans of trading and ultimately finding inspiration in Jones. “I had been paralyzed by my loss,” Islam remembered of his 9-year-old self.
“But [Jones] was able to go back to it, even after losing thousands of dollars over and over,” he said.
And while Islam still needs to rely on dad to chauffeur him on inspirational drives past the magnate’s Greenwich mansion, he’s quick to quote from the guru whom he credits with getting him back in the game and making him “who I am today.”
“Paul Tudor Jones says, ‘You learn more from your losses than from your gains.’ ”
See this report at New York Post’s website.
DATA PROVIDED BY
TODAY'S
INTEREST RATES
MortgageEquitySavingsAutoCredit Cards
-------
Update:
http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius-investor-made-it-all-up/
It’s been a tough month for factchecking. After the Rolling Stone campus rape story unraveled, readers of all publications can be forgiven for questioning the process by which Americans get our news. And now it turns out that another blockbuster story is —to quote its subject in an exclusive Observer interview—”not true.”
Monday’s edition of New York magazine includes an irresistible story about a Stuyvesant High senior named Mohammed Islam who had made a fortune investing in the stock market. Reporter Jessica Pressler wrote regarding the precise number, “Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the “’high eight figures.’” The New York Post followed up with a story of its own, with the fat figure playing a key role in the headline: “High school student scores $72M playing the stock market.”
And now it turns out, the real number is … zero.
In an exclusive interview with Mr. Islam and his friend Damir Tulemaganbetov, who also featured heavily in the New York story, the baby faced boys who dress in suits with tie clips came clean. Swept up in a tide of media adulation, they made the whole thing up.
Speaking at the offices of their newly hired crisis pr firm, 5WPR, and handled by a phalanx of four, including the lawyer Ed Mermelstein of RheemBell & Mermelstein, Mr. Islam told a story that will be familiar to just about any 12th grader—a fib turns into a lie turns into a rumor turns into a bunch of mainstream media stories and invitations to appear on CNBC.
Here’s how it happened.
Observer: What was your first contact with the New York magazine reporter?
Mohammed Islam: My friend’s father worked at New York magazine and he had the reporter contact me. Then she [Jessica Pressler] called me.
You seem to be quoted saying “eight figures.” That’s not true, is it?
No, it is not true.
Is there ANY figure? Have you invested and made returns at all?
No.
So it’s total fiction?
Yes.
Are you interested in investing? How did you get this reputation?
I run an investment club at Stuy High which does only simulated trades.
If you had been playing with real money, would you have done really well?
The simulated trades percentage was extremely high relative to the S&P.
Where did Jessica Pressler come up with the $72 million figure?
I honestly don’t know. The number’s a rumor.
She said ‘have you made $72 million’?
[I led her to believe] I had made even more than $72 million on the simulated trades.
At this point the PR reps jumped in with Law & Order style objections. A conference outside the room ensued. Back into the room came Mr. Islam.
All I can say is for the simulated trades, I was very successful. The returns were incredible and outperformed the S&P.
Damir, tell me where you fit into this.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: Well, I got excited by this whole trading thing and I said hey, let me get on board. I heard about this article coming out and Mohammed invited me and I met Jessica.
But you guys are pals outside of this?
We go to social gatherings and friends’ places.
Are you into stockpicking as well?
I haven’t been into it but I’m interested.
Mohammed, you’re from Queens and you go to this elite public high school. Is this a hobby of your parents as well or would you be the first person in your family to pursue high finance?
Mohammed Islam: In my immediate family, just me.
So what did your parents think when they’re reading that you’ve got $72 million?
Mohammed Islam: Honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she’d never talk to me. Their morals are that if I lie about it and don’t own up to it then they can no longer trust me. … They knew it was false and they basically wanted to kill me and I haven’t spoken to them since.
You haven’t? Where did you sleep last night?
Mohammed Islam: At a friend’s house. But we didn’t sleep.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: We stayed awake all night. We’ve been checking out news all over the world.
Are your friends blowing up your phones?
Damir Tulemaganbetov: He had 297 unread messages and 190 LinkedIn. All the friends shared it.
Mohammed Islam: It was hyped up beyond belief.
Damir Tulemaganbetov: We were at CNBC. That’s why we’re dressed up. But we were there and literally in the building stressing out. We had 20 minutes. Then we three times asked them could we have 20 seconds to talk?
[The boys ended up cancelling the CNBC appearance.]
Where do you go from here?
Damir Tulemaganbetov: Socially, people will be mad about it. But we’re sorry. Especially to our parents. Like my dad would read this and be like ‘Oh My God’ because he’s a very humble man and I portrayed him like a bad father.
Mohammed Islam: At school, first things first. I am incredibly sorry for any misjudgment and any hurt I caused. The people I’m most sorry for is my parents. I did something where I can no longer gain their trust. I have one sister, two years younger, and we don’t really talk.
...
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusi...genius-investor-made-it-all-up/#ixzz3M4DlBVb0
Follow us: @newyorkobserver on Twitter | newyorkobserver on Facebook
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