Forget the middle-aged belt-and braces stockbroker who ‘knows' a good stock. Ignore the 5-star tech analysts who never saw a startup he didn't like (with your money). Meet 25-year-old math PhD Sam Barnett, CEO of SBB Research – a quant hedge fund – who, instead of wild extrapolations and Keynesian hockey-sticks, trades the market by “using data to mine information before it is encoded into the markets.”
While several of the CNBC team flounders to show why their commissions are worth it, and why a 25-year-old could not possibly ‘know' anything, we for once agree with their premise – this IS the future of trading – 25-year-old math PhDs mining data faster than a fat finger can press buy.