Wall Street’s newest obsession? A high school – Business News
Wall Street’s new guilty pleasure began as a lunchroom debate between pre-calc and chemistry lessons.
Passing the Torch, a publication masking markets, economics, politics and tradition, was based in 2025 by Jasper Gould and Emile Chilingirian, each now 17, whereas they have been sophomores on the prestigious Berkeley Carroll prep school in Park Slope.
It now has a subscriber listing almost 60,000 sturdy — with more than two-thirds of readers registering with company emails. Addresses belonging to McKinsey, JP Morgan, Blackstone and Nvidia workers quantity within the 1000’s. Hundreds more come from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Palantir and Microsoft.
Emile Chilingirian (left) and Jasper Gould are the authors of the Passing the Torch publication. The high schoolers started the publication during their sophomore 12 months on the Berkeley Carroll prep school in Park Slope, Brooklyn.. Courtesy Photos
“On politics and on capitalism, we have a lot of differing opinions,” Gould stated. “We probably should have been doing our homework when we were doing this.”
To learn PTT is to look inside the collective mind of a era — one that’s largely distrustful of establishments and misunderstood by Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Recent tales from the publication have blended anecdotal and statistical information on Gen Z’s sentiment in the direction of automated autos and robotaxis; examined how the growing bonds between teenagers and wristwatches mirrors a growing distaste for AI; and separated performance from cultural relevance to clarify the death of sneaker tradition.
“I read this and The Atlantic with equal levels of intrigue,” stated Sam Shaffer, an early reader and former eBay govt now consulting New Zealand’s authorities on business development. “Their writing is not focused on crushing the market … it’s about the trends they see in their world.”
Chilingirian and Gould additionally based the Brooklyn Youth Charitable Investment Group, an instructional nonprofit that teaches financial literacy to high schoolers throughout the nation. Courtesy Photos
High finance and Big Tech sorts buy in, Chilingirian believes, for the “Gen-Z takes … variant views that the market may not have priced in yet. We’re experiencing them in real time.”
“The only other source of high school intel is when investors ask their children,” Gould added.
A subscription to Passing the Torch runs $15 monthly or $150 per 12 months — with annual income for the authors sitting within the five-figure vary.
And whereas Gould and Chilingirian attend a school the place tuition prices over $66,000 per 12 months, their reporting is distinctly populist. That’s as a result of the writers are in close to fixed communication with high schoolers all throughout the nation.
More than two-thirds of Passing the Torch readers registered with company emails. Addresses belonging to McKinsey, JP Morgan, Blackstone and Nvidia workers quantity within the 1000’s. Hundreds more come from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Palantir and Microsoft.
When they’re not engaged on the Substack — researching and writing eats up a mixed 30 hours per week) or at school — Gould and Chilingirian lead the non-profit Brooklyn Youth Charitable Investment Group which happened from them and their buddies eating pizza and speaking about shares.
Two years in, 1,000 college students from all corners of the nation have handed by the group. BYCIG has hosted talks with the chief economists of the White House, Wells Fargo and the Conference Board of Canada, in addition to administrators at UBS, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase.
More nonetheless have turn out to be concerned with BYCIG by its investment arm, which manages a fund of about $50,000 raised by dad and mom and finance professionals. Student groups analysis and pitch investment concepts to an advisory committee, and propositions that the board votes yes on are despatched by to an accountant who executes the commerce. The group then donates half of their returns to charity.
All in all, the fund has outperformed the market with three of the 12 positions growing more than 40%.
“The primary reaction is amazement,” stated Nick Gould, Jasper’s father. A tech industry veteran and self-employed govt coach with a 200-subscriber publication of his own. (He credit PTT as the first source of any growth he’s seen in his own year-old publication.)
Now within the throes of school software season, rising seniors Gould and Chilinigirian are serious about succession plans for each the publication and nonprofit.
“We can’t set up a hedge fund just yet,” Gould stated. “I won’t be 18 for another two months.”
