The reporting has been woefully inadequate and the chances of the story being accurate are slim. I say slim not because he is a kid but simply because the numbers are so over the top.
I was thinking the same thing actually. Very entertaining in any case. Without anything other than newspaper and magazine articles to go on, this has the appearance of a teenager gotcha. These guys are all judgement proof, having the time of their lives with this nonsense. Those photos all look photo shopped to me -- a poor job at that. When something seems impossible, it likely is.
The fact that this is on every single news source (when it really isn't news) makes it stink of paid advertisement, reminds me of a few months months back when they all ran a story about how successful that Sykes guy is. I'm sure we will see this kid selling training courses in no time. If it is fact based, well than, good for the kid.
The more I analyze this story, the more ridiculous it looks. Assuming this guy started trading from age 9 to age 17, in order to get his $72 million, he'd start out with $1 million (ridiculous! Who is going to give a 9 yo a million dollar trading account?) and have an average gain over 4.5% a month for 96 months straight! And we're not talking about the go-go 90s, we're talking now. Remember how the world almost collapsed just 6 years ago? Unless this kid is insider trading all the time ... And all this is done during his school lunch breaks! LOL And the unthinking media just laps this BS up.
Story of the high school day trader making $72 million fails the smell test http://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-hig...ot-make--72-million--jeff-make-164536104.html
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan This was probably some sort of class experiment to see how quickly false and sensational news can spread.
It seems like the person who "broke" the story is Jessica Pressler. It's not the first time she fabricated the truth. Definitely not a financial reporter. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/01/avicii-gq-article-failed-miserably_n_2994485.html