Mo Islam, the 17-year-old "whiz kid" investor who suggested he'd made $72 million trading stocks on his high school lunch breaks, admits now he made much less than that.
As in, zero.
After a long day in the media spotlight, Islam admitted to the New York Observer late Monday night that the whole thing had been a fabrication and that he had not made anything at all trading stocks.
"The people I'm most sorry for is my parents. I did something where I can no longer gain their trust," he told the magazine in a question-and-answer session at the office of a public relations firm.
The controversy started with a New York magazine article that suggested Islam was fabulously wealthy for a boy his age, the result of astute stock picking at school.
But skeptics pounced on the story almost immediately, and in a CNBC interview at midday Monday, Islam said the New York article was not accurate. He intimated that his trades had netted a few million dollars but dodged repeated questions.
(Late Tuesday morning, New York posted an apology to readers in which it said it had been duped. Islam himself also posted an apology video on YouTube.)
For the full Observer story click here.