Tell him to read a book, and figure it out himself. Not clear to me how you can really "help" him beyond that. He can start with Rishi Narang's "Inside the Black Box" for a non-technical, high-level overview.
There are tons of items you could give him to do. For instance, you could ask him to tabulate returns, distributions, statistics, etc.. and produce charts and tables to compare to other established CTAs. Certainly the results will help on the marketing side (well, assuming they are good to begin with). Then ask for feedback (slides/reports) on what similarities and or differences he finds and what areas can be improved. At least you can see if you are in the ballpark with heavyweight funds and can see if he's capable of doing some simple tasks for a start. If you don't want to divulge your ideas, find some good papers and ask him to reproduce the results (the process can be harder than it seems) in a code language you can work with. Take advantage of this resource.
You have been wishing him to fail and go away from the start, which is a terrible and irresponsible thing to do to someone. He is picking up your vibes. Look for a more positive approach. If you cannot find one, terminate the arrangement now. Do not ever agree to something involving people that you are not really on board with.
Not true. Supposedly this kid is a quant genius, but for all I know he could be this guys bastard love child. All that aside, I wish I had some huge project for this kid to get into, I just don't. That's why I was asking for direction. Sure I can have him do a bunch of mundane stuff, run some excel programs figure out some correlations, etc. But what happens in a month when I'm asked what we been working on and I say some crap an intern would do? This guy is likely not with me forever, but probably going to do a rotation throughout this guys other funds. I didn't enter into an arrangement, this was forced on me. It's not a horrible thing, it's not like the guy asked to bang my wife. Regarding my attitude, I'm a 15 year market vet and I've got to bend over backwards to motivate some kid to do what he is supposedly talented at? Eff that. I do want to see this guy succeed, because of course I can take credit for it. So don't assume things about my approach. I've already gotten plenty of good responses and with a little research this weekend I think I will have something that should keep him plenty busy. And who knows, if he does it well I may even look to get more involved. Thanks Heech, for the book recommendation. I'm going to read it myself first.
You could ask him to do a study of your trading results and make suggestions. Even better, give him at least an outline of how your reading approach operates, but a lot can be said even with just the results.............