Yesterday, when we skeptically mocked the NY Mag's Jessica Pressler coverage of Mohammed Islam, the 17-year-old wunderkind who "allegedly" made $72 million in the market by trading penny stocks, we covered the salient lies and told readers to "feel free to click on the NY Mag's story about the young "multi-millionaire" - after all that was the whole point." Sure enough, in the finest tradition of the New Republic's Stephen Glass, the entire article was nothing more than one epic big clickbait fest.
Oh, did we mention: completely fabricated clickbait.
Because after the entire world learned that young trading whiz-kid Mohammed Islam had "made" $72 million, certainly including the IRS which would promptly come looking for the $36 or so million it was due, the alleged megatrader, who got just the wrong 15 minutes of fame, scrambled to set the record straight, and explained the instead of making money, he actually made nothing, he just made it all up: to wit: "Is there ANY figure? Have you invested and made returns at all? No. So it’s total fiction? Yes. I run an investment club at Stuy High which does only simulated trades."
Well that clears it up.

Now all he needs is a newsletter and he can claim he is Investment Club 2.0.
For the full story we present the following interview with the NY Observer, where Islam confesses he is nothing but a paper trader.
New York Mag’s Boy Genius Investor Made It All Up
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.
So that’s that. There was no $72 million, no “eight figures,” not even one figure. The story is already coming unglued as the commenters on New York’s site hammer the reporter for even thinking this was possible. New York has now altered its headline to back away from the $72 million figure but the story itself remains. Even if this working-class kid had somehow started with $100,000 as a high school freshman on day one at Stuy High, he’d have needed to average a compounded annualized return of something like 796% over the three years since. C’mon, man.
No one asked for my opinion, but I’m going to provide it anyway, having sat with these kids for a good bit on a tough day. They got carried away. They’re not children. But they’re not quite adults, either, and at least Mr. Islam was literally quaking as we spoke. So yeah, they probably should have known better. But New York and the New York Post probably should have, as well. This story smelled fishy the instant it appeared and a quick dance with the calculator probably would have saved these young men—and a couple reporters—some embarrassment.
It is thats Bush fault
"Made It All Up"
Oh....kinda like the current President?
He definitely looks to be half Kenyan.
The highlight of his life, as he serves fries for the next 60 years.......
He now has government/central banking promise and would likely succeed in those fields.
That crap news outlet "Marketwatch" is still running the story.
Just making stuff up? That's FED chairman material right there.
BUT, BUT....... this has to be a true story. I read it on the internet.
And how many financial, economic, prepper web sites carried this story as "fact", because they can't be bothered to check the facts?
A bunch of fools, the press and gullible people who believed this garbage. The joke is on them.
Betcha somebody's gonna bet the livivng piss out of him at school today
Jessica looks at this muslim kid and the number 72 pops up. IE for 72 virgins. Then she goes on a writing spree and puts a dollar figure to the lie she writes. LO, Behold.. $ 72 million.
rodney sums it up in 9 seconds....r.i.p. rodney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udfhBjR-FtA
He's definitely Wall Street material.
Probably did it to try to impress the girls/women. Are there any girls/women that can now tell us a story about advances made by said stuffed shirt?
No caviar? No apple juice? Son of a bitch!!!!
Maybe some folk in the chain of events did a little personal Quantitative Easing.
We lied to some folks
Obama should appoint him FED chair, oh ooops he is muslim and not a card carrying member or AIPAC, sorry kid you will go to jail instead.
Looks like is was way more educational and enlightening for everyone involved than I'd guess...say...about 90% of my college and grad classes. Amazingly well done. I agree appoint him to public office or else! They should be paid for the investigative journalism of journalism they so brilliantly and subtly accomplished! They were smart enough not to end up on CNBC! The boys cancelled on CNBC, HA! Even if it was an inside job, it points to important failings in MSM.
He probably got confused with the whole 72 virgins thing..
Yeah, who's going to pay that $400 caviar and apple juice bill? Dear ole Dad? WTF?
I still think it's sad that the Aussie cops ended up killing this kid.
I can see why he was in a chocolate shop, but what did his radicalization have to do with his fake phenomenal stock returns?
That's more than Jon Corzine got.
So, Mohammad's scheme just got beheaded.
Todja todja todja
Allah Akbar, Pennies for Heaven
ISIS real or not? (get it, like "is this" real or not.... haha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)
I read in the story that "Mohammed Islam" drinks champagne with gummy bears, owns a Maserati and has an apartment in Manhattan.
I suppose that's all fake as well? The name in particular.
I know a few people with the last name Islam. Some of them arent even Muslim.
I think he meant the apartment, Maserati (tacky), gummie bears (72 at a time), etc.
When I was 9 I made so much money in real estate the bank ran out of money to give me.
Errrr, wait, that was monopoly.
pods
The pinacle of American Financial Journalism, right here, in one story.
Research, nope.
Financial envy, yep.
Quality, nope.
Responsibility, nope.
You nailed it right there RaceToTheBottom. +1000000
JPM, Goldman or Fed Reserve recruiters are knocking on his door right now.
"need a job young man?"
Not because he made 72 million on paper, but because he could lie and dupe half the world into believing it
Well, if the Fed can just make up 'money', why can't he just make up 'profits'?
No PhD.
No DoD.
You always need muscle to back-up a racket.
No - he came clean. This is a trait not consitent with gov/bankers.
haha yeah, somehow I just cant picture ol yeller coming out and saying ah jeez, you caught us, we might as well admit all of this debt owed the fed banks is entirely illegitimate...
The fact that even one person believed this was possible shows how silly the entire "market" is. Nobody would believe that a 17 year old kid beat LeBron James in a game of one on one. Not one! The entire "market" is a fucking casino but there are still thousands of people paid exorbitant amounts of money to be analysts, strategists and other forms of "expertise". Motherfucking silliest goddamn thing in history!!!!!
Exactly, serving fries alongside the Burger King Dork:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oWqBXrYaJRg
Both memorialized forever.
Of course he still owes $36 mil to the IRS so they own a piece of that paycheck for the next 834 years.
He may be an idiot but those who believed his story are bigger idiots.
Oh, you can bet 90% of people believed every word of it. If the newspaper and tv said it is so then it must be true.
I still believe it! He is just doing damage control to get the dead-beat 11 grade beggars from loitering around his locker. Cant get to class without being hounded.
if he was smart he would cash in on his pr and write a book or start a youtube channel or something
You mean Keynesian PhD?
See him leading the Federal Reserve. He's a natural BSer.
The best way to make a fortune in vaporware equity "markets" is on the 2 & 20 or 4 & 40 plan, regardless of actually producing positive or negative returns, with Other Peoples Money, bitchez.
Money Changers & Shylocks, bitchez.
At least he came clean and admitted what he had done- more than Corzine or Dimon would ever do, or any bankster, for that matter.
LOLOLOLOL. There were so many questions that were not addressed in the origional story I had my doubts. Where did his inital capital come from, where were his investments focused ect ect, questions that you would have expected any reporter worth their salt to have. This caused me to think the reporter didn't to thier due diligence and as we all know kids lie. I love it!!! People get lucky but this was doubtful.
He's a fat one alright...
Fat finger trades????
The BallWasher Media abdicates its duty of verification to simply promote "Diversity" as feel-good even-immigrants-can-do-it-too crap to amuse the elite and placate everyone else:
Feudal Frisco Purges Its Poor http://wp.me/p2kmGE-4iA
a fat stinky dumbass lying arab, who would have thought?
Yeah... except he's not arab. But you already knew that, right?
So? If i get in the mood, why would I care?
He MADE SOMETHING UP, he wasn't insider trading, didn't commit fraud or steal. Got any of that hate and anger for the real crooks or the fact that they get away with their crimes, Seth?
"Federal appeals court overturned and threw out the guilty verdicts of two hedge fund managers, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, ruling jury instructions tainted their verdictsand imperiling other cases brought in his multiyear probe."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-10/insider-trading-legal-following...
"A federal appeals court said the U.S. government had waited too long to prosecute three formerGeneral Electric Co bankers for conspiring to defraud cities in a municipal bond bid rigging scheme, and ordered the case to be dismissed.
"A Manhattan federal jury convicted the defendants of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and defraud the United States. Goldberg was sentenced to four years in prison, and Carollo and Grimm to three years each."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/09/ge-bidrigging-decision-idUSL1N...
If Dear Leader Obama had a son he'd behave like this guy.
And have a tax payer funded "sex change" operation...
Oh...kinda like the current Fed chair?
I just made 150 mill but its my secret!
We "made it all up".... folks.
We fooled some folks.
Isn't that what the Federal Reserve tries to do? Make up fake wealth?
I hope the IRS still gives him a tax bill for $36 million. Make him pay for the rest of his life.
On the other hand, he is a terribly convincing liar. I see a future for him in politics.
We simulated some people
No one should be surprised.
Taqiya forms the basis of their interactions with westerners.
Not only a member of the Religion of Peace....but the Religion of Bullshit as well.
"simulated" how do we know this?
What's that, pay a capital gains tax?
Nevermind "I made it all up".
“The economic rekovery is robust!”
“There’s never been a better time then now to buy a house.”
“If you want to keep your insurance, you can keep your insurance.”
… never mind; I made it all up.
Okay, but when does the FED have their "we made it all up" press conference?
Fucking Arab.....deport him
He's from the "Bengal region" whatever the fuck that means... apparently India or Pakistan.
Or maybe he's from Cincinnati
Or India or Bangladesh. Ever try using the internet to learn things you don't know?
WTF Indeed Sir!!!!! You have won!!!!
Please select the prize that Carol is bringing down the aisle.......it's a GED!!!
One of these days the clock is going to start ticking on how fast they burn through those petro dollars before they have to go back to goat herding.
Deport him? Really? How about deporting or better yet jailing those who actually commit crimes on Wall Street.
He would make a great central banker!
He would make a great politician or congressman or banker or senator!
Fixed.
If the Fed can make up a few trillion, a high school student in the land of the free surely can be forgiven for making up $72 million - good training for Wall Street jobs.
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
I did say I was abducted by aliens.
He has a future in the US federal Reserve.
A future Ben Bernanke.
The kid would make a good central banker someday. No worries kid our Central Bank types lie too.
Dude's first job out of skool will be interning for Cramer.
He's the master at making shit up.
Wow! Who would have thunk it? Fucking retards will believe anything they read today.
It fills me with pride that 80% of the comments in this thread are directing the young lad towards a promising career in central banking.
College football player continues through tough season after girlfriend dies, college football player hurts leg jumping from balcony into pool to save relative from drowning, KFC workers kick little girl out of restaurant for having bandaged face, police in Ferguson shoot guy kneeling on pavement with hands up, last 2 presidents actually passed course work to get Ivy league degrees, Al Gore cares about the environment,...
this is your proof to never ever get your info from the MSM
You beleive everything you read on the internet?
I believe everything my dear socialists leaders tell me......and you should too.
You omitted the "Or Else!" at the end of your comment.
Smug fat little fuck, and where is the old man? He need his ass kicked for letting jr. lead others on like he did.
edit...ok so I missed the part at the bottom, maybe the old man has some scruples after all.
read the article, the old man dis-owned the kid that caused him to come clean.
Im not mad at the kid. Infact I think it makes it funnier. Everyone in the Mainstream media grabbed this story and ran. No fact checking. personally, I think he should have stuck with it. "What do you mean its gone, what happen to it? This is an outrage!!!!"
It's funny because he's fat.
Yeah.....it just works.
Credible media stories are a thing of the past. Click bait and get the views for media $$. There are enough sites to recycle crappy reporter/bloggers.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on it's shoes." - Mark Twain
A Muslim who lies...how novel.
oh yeh, WMD any one???
He was goaded into this ruse by his friend Sum Ting Wong.
Hey hey hey...I smelled a rat from the beginning. $72 million and 72 virgins for this boy? Really? And Mohammed Islam? Whowouldathunkit? The kid made shit up.
OK, so I'm not against making the MSM look like complete fools, but this wasn't my thing. Mine was for Bernanke drop a flaming bag of dogshit off on the Chinese Imperial Palace doorstep, ring the doorbell, and run like hell. So I kinda did get that to happen...
My bad bro. Had you confused with Wi Tu Lo. You all look alike, you know
All of us white people with dark hair who take on aliases as if we're Asian?
He'll go on to work for the Fed official statistics dept!
he has a bright future - fraud is the best ticket to riches now in Ammerika
i'm glad he didn't lose any real money. simulated trades in penny stocks do not take into account the effect one's own trades have on the price so those numbers are bogus any way you look at it.
Exactly, you place a real buy or sell order on penny stocks for $50 million and see what happens to the price.
hell try to sell $50 worth and see what happens
Did any hot chicks fall for it?
He did say he spent the night at "a friend's house." Friends with benefits???
Crazy Older generation.
"Their morals are that if I lie about it and don’t own up to it then they can no longer trust me."
This to me still doesn't add up: " My friend’s father worked at New York magazine and he had the reporter contact me." The kids didn't go out to the media, but instead it was parent-instigated. If the father actually beleved they were making money, he would have worked to get them a tax adviser, set up a corporation to do the trades in, etc like that before getting them a repoter. Also you would think the reporter would ask the parents about this since presumably the parents would have set up the trading account. Then again perhaps this is all about Erdely-style truthiness where fact-checking doesn't matter, but what matters is that there's people making money on Wall Street.
Spanish, are you fucking kidding? Do you know how much paperwork is required by the IRS PER TRADE? He would have needed a whole fucking accounting firm to sort through this "day traders" bullshit. If you make a $100,000 it cost an extra $1000 for the CPA to fill out the forms for long term/short term gain/loss. I knew it was bullshit at the headline.
I knew it was bullshit and didn't bother to read the article. UGMA (uniform gift to minors act) prohibits kids from trading real money without parental approval. One of my parents had to sign off on each trade I made as a minor (35 years ago).
in the Age of Fraud, do you think law matters ?
semperfi, you can't open an account/wire transfer etc. without the UGMA forms filled out. I couldn't make a trade without a parent verifying with broker. I'd guess most brokers wouldn't fiddle with it.
fraud reigns
a trader captializing on the grotesquely fraudulent markets is himself a grotesque fraud
fraud - the new Amerikan exceptionalism
"The simulated trades percentage was extremely high relative to the S&P."
The proud owner of $72 million fake US dollars.......which soon will be what $72 million in real dollars is worth.
If he was smart he could have turned this whole discussion into just what is fake? Fake FRN?
Funnier than shit.
What a fuckstick. I assume I'll work for him some day.
Get to work Mr. Bullard!
Didn't he pay attention to what The Tribe did to last fat Indian who lied ??...
I mean, we all knew that this was completely bogus. But with that said, I still have questions.
Was this pure click bait? Did the media want a pro-investing story to shore up confidence in a questionable market? 1010 WINS News even covered this, so I'm given to think that CBS/Viacom had a story to manufacture.
What I don't understand is why didn't they just cherry pick a true story of the lottery winner who actually chose the right penny stock.
Ah, but then I remember: that sort of thing takes actual effort, which is nearly extint today.
This story even spilled over to MSM in Europe! Read it in German newspapers (albeit shitty ones) and some other countries too. So, we are being fed the same BS over here.
The sad thing is: some of the MSM in Europe will not correct the mistake, others will correct this but readers will miss it and still believe this BS. "Hey Joe, read the other day about a kid that made 72 mil....let's go and invest"
Damage is already made.
What will they invent next time? Maybe a story about someone that doesn't even exist, with a funny name. Loved the caviar and apple juice detail. Cool meme.
Next time: New York beggar was shitting on Wall Street Journal, found secret formula to buy stocks and became millionaire. He likes to eat dead raccoons with Dom Perignon.
The 4th estate has disappeared. Feel free to act accordingly. Starting to see stories that say Sony execs aren't really the pretentious, racist assholes that wrote those emails and even if they are all movie execs are pretentious, racist assholes so it's ok because they say the right things in public.
Oddly enough "Mohammad Islam" is the name of at least 100 million pedophile imbeciles on planet Earth.
Typical... junked by ZH jew-haters. You fucksticks deserve sharia.
He Will be able to laugh about this in 40 years. ..
Rule Number 1 of the Media
Don't let the facts (even if there are none at all) get in the way of a good story.
Classic bit of business for them. Lots of page views, lots of talk generated, lots of advertising sold, but ultimately complete bollocks.
Since when is 17 not a child? Kid barely knows his route to school let alone managing PR BS
"yeah, yeah bl-anders, that's a good idea, thats a good idea"
LMAO no fact checking this kid..
Pakistan: Taliban claim attack on military school, at least 125 dead including 84 children
Ah, so he's learned the first rule.
The correct answer is: "What $72 million?"
So will all of the websites that ran this story yesterday be offering rebates to their advertisers for running a false story? That's what I thought.
Wash, rinse, repeat next week.
As an individual trader, you can't make large consecutives gains w/o drawing the ire of some gov't agency...especially to make $72 million... He woudl have been profiled long before.
Don't tell me anybody got to trust that stuff???... 17M$ from scratch, under 18yo??...
Not even one in a billion monkeys trading would manage it, if only by odds...
Someone get this kid an interview with the Federal Reserve. He's got what it takes to be a central banker.
Mohammed Islam, Allah is proud of you, mother fucker! You'll get you 72 virgins.
And here he thought it would be 72 million virgins!
How stupid or inexperienced do you have to be to even think for one second that this was true. Anyone who has traded even 1 or 2 million knows that you can't get fills without high-frequency traders sniffing you out and milking you. Second, it takes a lot of experience and failure to learn enough money management to get to 72 million.
chindit's son?
why doesn't he get the FED to bail him out...like the crooks on wall street. As they make it up...then get rescued!
Bet his friend's dad will get fired from the New Yorker
On my second view, he's still a very hairy 17 yr old
I got nothing against hairy guys(I'm all for bringing back beards), but hairy kids bug me...
He is not made of the stuff of banksters. A true bankster would have held the lie. In fact, they would have made it more unbeiveable: "I dont know what happent to the money. its gone (corzine)".
This is just a poor average kid. Better hit the books son. You dont have what it takes to be a hedgie. You have a concience.
Teens make up retarded stories on the internet. News at 10.
I really do wish these kids the best of luck in their future trades when they manage to save up enough money to make real trades.
So... there's no difference between him and what we call bank accounting right now?
Also, are "journalists" like the biggest suckers out there right now? Like what is a journalism degree? Is it setting up the spellcheck macros correctly? Maybe it's talking really fast and dressing fashionably and shaming people in your office environment while you scoop the latest thing trending on social media.
Buddy, buddy, buddy....stop right there. I mean your last paragraph! You are expecting too much from modern "journalists". I have worked at a Consulting firm and can guarantee you that what you wrote is already too much to bear for them.
Some of these folks stop right after one Twitter post and need a coffee or a diazepam or both (but feel entitled to ask for the newest MAC-shit product and a BMW as company car!)
Nice, a true American kid who is watching and learning from Obama, CIA, Congress, economists, the Fed...you name it...this kid just got a little over ambitious with his number but is learning what it will take to survive in the coming decades in America....
His simulated earnings were corzined
It shows you how stupid the press is in this article...no one checked this guy out....noone...wow..that is stupid...
Dude just needs to run for President or something. He'd be a shoe-in.
Of course he made it up. I couldn't believe the media fell for this from the get-go. Well, maybe I can. Facts? What do they matter. Apparently it's too much work for some in the media to dig them up.