[wangwei]

Even people with very high level math knowledge fails to predict the market (remember the two noble prize scientists who failed?).Since you're out of school when you were 17, I doubt you'll able develop complex schemes (unless you are a very very rare genius).

[chasingsparks]

I was not out of school at 17. What caused you to infer that? (I'd like to correct it if it sounds that way.)

I am actually starting a masters/Ph.D. program in the fall in computational social sciences. Like I mentioned in the post, I am interested in social systems in general, not only markets. (However, I do find markets to be the most interesting.)

[xenophanes]

Obviously he has the aptitude to learn things on his own. Sounds like he can learn better/faster on his own time than the large majority of students do at a school. So no need to hound him with pessimism for having an unconventional but pleasant lifestyle.