Mohammed Islam, a student at Stuyvesant High School, reportedly made $72 million trading stocks during his lunch breaks. Well, that’s the story that’s going viral today.
Here’s what happened: Mohammed Islam was profiled by NY Magazine earlier this week. In the report, author Jessica Pressler writes that there is a rumor that Islam has made $72 million playing the stocks.
Pressler said: “Late last year, a rumor began circulating at Stuyvesant that a junior named Mohammed Islam had made a fortune in the stock market. Not a small fortune, either. Seventy-two million.”
This somehow turned into a fact and several media outlets reported that Mohammed Islam made more than $70 million during his lunch hour at school.
Mohammed didn’t specify how much he has made in the stock market but he did say that the number was greatly exaggerated.
Islam told CNBC: “The attention is not what we expected – we never wanted the hype. This was about friends trying to make something exciting together … We expected a regular article about what we hope to do … The way we were portrayed is not who we are.”
The magazine defended it’s article, saying that it presented the $72 million figure as a rumor. Furthermore, the magazine claims that Mohammed did confirm that he is worth eight figures.
This high school student may have not made $72 million playing the stock market but he did make at least $10 million. That’s still pretty incredible.
[UPDATE: Apparently none of it was true. The student admitted that he made the entire thing up and NY Mag issued an apology for failing to fact check his story.]
photo credit: danielfoster437 via photopin cc
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