<p>I can’t believe no one asked whether these kids lied thinking it would help with college admissions. It’s the first thing I thought of …
<a href=“EXCLUSIVE: New York Mag’s Boy Genius Investor Made It All Up | Observer”>http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius-investor-made-it-all-up/</a></p>
<p>Yep, knew when story came out, just couldn’t be true…even with my rudimentary math skills, I new they couldn’t have made $72M…unless they started with $71M…</p>
<p>What’s with the lack of skills and just basic common sense in the journalism world these days???</p>
<p>The mathematical improbability of his supposed feat was one of the first things some fellow Stuy alums started discussing. </p>
<p>That was one reason why I wasn’t eager to pay too much attention to the story. </p>
<p>I’m kind of glad I don’t follow the 24/7 news hour cycle as closely as I should. Yeah, I’m slow to learn about genuinely important events but I usually get to miss the obvious canard stories until after they’ve been debunked.</p>
<p>I do wonder why so-called journalists insist on printing one-source stories though without corroboration. It wouldn’t have taken too much digging to figure this stuff out, right? I mean, you don’t amass a $72 million dollar fortune without attracting some attention, right? I think most of the time what ends up happening is that one credulous reporter prints a story and other reporters just kind of assume that the first reporter verified the facts. It’s how a lot of totally fabricated stories get spread – not just stories like this, but outright joke articles from The Onion that get reprinted out of context as if they were true stories.</p>
<p>I didn’t buy it for an instant. </p>
<p>I do know of some relatively young people who made a ton of money but the description shows why it’s so unusual: a relative of mine roomed in grad school for a year with another kid who was part of a “ring” of Chinese language short sellers. They could read the Chinese financial reports and had the financial background to understand how they might be faked plus reports from China about how much business they were actually doing. They made a lot of money - and the kid left grad school. I can’t see how you’d make such huge returns in a regular stock market without some truly weird event. An example is you might have bought future contracts for the Dow or S&P before the October 1987 crash for nearly nothing if you bet on a 400 point fall and then came into the money because the Dow actually fell 500 points plus another 100 the next trading day. The reason those were so cheap is no one believed that could happen, which is the opposite of short-selling Chinese companies that you can tell are lying about their results.</p>
<p>Another story I didn’t believe when I read the headline. Are journalists really so gullible? Don’t journalism schools teach critical thinking? Question everything? Are journalists now just scribes writing down what anyone tells them?</p>
<p>Easy come…easy go.</p>
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<p>Of course not. Most don’t teach basics Stats, either.</p>
<p>Somehow they are all still shocked that people lose respect for journalism and aren’t interested in paying for news content. Maybe if there was some element of quality control involved people would be more comfortable subscribing to newspapers, blogs, etc. </p>
<p>The level of implausibility is further underscored considering the fact earlier stories stated he had enough money to buy a BMW and rent an apartment. </p>
<p>Rent an apartment?!! If I had $72 million…or even much less, I’d do what I actually did…buy a place, not rent. </p>
<p>Minors cannot buy/sell stocks. Big red flag.</p>
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<p>Not officially. </p>
<p>However, with online investment portfolios, who’s to know whether the parent(s) aren’t signing off on all the buying/selling if the child concerned IS ACTUALLY such an investment genius the parents figured “the kid knows what he/she’s doing.” </p>
<p>A kid could co-own a brokerage account with a parent, and the kid could have access to online trading tools.</p>
<p>I am a former journalist. These kinds of stories are like knives in my heart. Part of the problem is that many companies, in a cost-saving measure, have practically done away with the professionals whose job was to catch these things: the highly skeptical, under-appreciated copy editor. People still have to write and take pictures so they have a level of job security. Companies just have to hope that their reporters and photographers are able to do their jobs completely error-free because those overworked professionals often are flying without a net. I don’t know a single copy editor whose BS meter wouldn’t have gone off. </p>
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<p>That line should make the ETS test writers proud. But then, the phalanx was probably the middle finger one. </p>
<p>I thought it was an excellent prank, and really amazing that the reporter(s) fell for it. The story I read (before the kid admitted it was a hoax) did not mention how much he started with, over what time period his profits were made, no hint of his strategy or instruments traded, only stating that he had made “approximately” $72mm and he and his buddies ate caviar at lunch. As one commenter noted, that should have been the giveaway of a hoax. HS kids don’t like caviar! LOL!</p>
<p>The only way his account could have been worth $72mm is if he had started with $80mm</p>
<p>I remember reading the story. I didn’t explicitly disbelieve it but I was certainly skeptical. I thought likely what happened was his father was wealthy and day traded, and he watched or something like that. Didn’t think it was a total outright lie though.</p>
<p>If they gave a number that was kind of reasonable it would be more believable. Let’s say he made 5K from tutoring. He would have had to have doubled that 14 times, pretty unrealistic. If they had said 100K, a little more than doubling 4 times, I would have been more believing. </p>
<p>I’ll add, there are poker players who amass huge sums in the millions shortly after they turn 18 (you can look at Isildur1/Victor Blom) even for them 72 million sounds redicilous. </p>
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That applies to engineering companies, also, unfortunately! I try not to think about that when I got up in a high-rise building or a roller-coaster. :(</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t necessarily use the caviar bit as a red flag. </p>
<p>There are plenty of HS and younger kids, especially those from higher SES families with high-end sophisticated tastes in expensive delicacies like caviar that few of us have had a chance to taste until adulthood…or ever. </p>
<p>Let’s not underestimate the sophistication of some US HS kids.</p>
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<p>The reported length of time and the fact he was doing this with money earned from tutoring meant the math didn’t make sense. Especially considering earlier reports made a big deal he was from a working/lower-middle class immigrant background. Not an SES typically filled with families with wealthy day traders. </p>
<p>Also, considering most Stuy students even now are from working/lower-middle class SES, it’s unlikely he’s earning much to start up an investment account. Even if a few tutoring clients are well-off and generous higher SES students. </p>