Wall Street’s Smartest Trading AI Is Now in Students’ Hands
Wall Street’s Smartest Trading AI Is Now in Students’ Hands
Blog Article
By Special Feature by Forbes Asia
Imagine having a cheat code for financial markets. Joseph Plazo didn’t just imagine it—he built it. Then gave it away.
Hong Kong, 2025 — In a sunlit University of Hong Kong classroom, Joseph Plazo walked the stage like a code-wielding prophet.
PhDs and programmers sat frozen, eyes locked on the projector as a piece of market history appeared as code.
“What you’re seeing,” he said, “is the DNA of something that never lost.”
Then he added: “And you’re going to improve it.”
## The Code That Outplayed Wall Street
Plazo’s AI took 12 years, 72 failed iterations, and millions in research funding to perfect.
System 72 blends behavioral forecasting, sentiment parsing, and high-frequency trade logic.
It scrapes Reddit threads, decodes Fed speech stress levels, reads derivatives flow, and parses tweet tone.
“Markets aren’t equations,” Plazo explains. “They’re emotional theaters.”
And System 72 delivered.
It predicted the 2024 tech rally. It anticipated 2025’s altcoin run—48 hours early.
System 72 wasn’t just smart. It was surgical.
## Then Came the Twist
Sitting in his boardroom, he made a decision no financier expected.
“I’m releasing the core engine to the public,” he told his team.
It wasn’t a joke. It was a paradigm shift.
No hedge fund exclusives. No paywalls. Just code—for students.
“Genius shouldn’t be hoarded,” Plazo told Forbes. “It should be cultivated.”
## The Educational Revolution That Followed
Soon, labs from Singapore to Japan were adapting the code in wildly creative ways.
Tokyo teams applied it to logistics. Students in Manila used it for AI-powered budgeting.
“It’s not just a financial AI anymore,” said Professor Takahashi of Tokyo University.
Global regulators? Watching—and learning.
## Critics, Controversy, and the Ethics of Genius
Of course, not everyone cheered.
“This could destabilize global markets,” one investment firm claimed.
But Plazo didn’t blink.
“You don’t blame the scalpel,” he said. “You train the hand.”
You can access the mind. You still need to build the body.
“We gave the world the brain,” he said. “Now let’s see who builds the best nervous system.”
## Real Stories from the Ground
A mother in the Philippines built a tech business after studying the open-source code.
Vietnamese undergrads used the model to stabilize food market risk.
A Mumbai coder called it “the key that opened my family's future.”
## The Philosophy That Powers the Gift
His reason? “Because monopolizing insight is the slowest way to grow.”
The danger isn’t in sharing. It’s in silence.
“The real risk is keeping power in too few hands,” he told me.
## Conclusion: The Joystick Is Yours Now
Back on campus, Plazo watches more info students code with the same hunger he once had.
“Trading was just the beginning,” he says. “This is about agency.”
While others hoarded secrets, he gave away power.
And somewhere, a kid is writing the next version of System 72—because now, they can.