15 years ago, I sat next to a stranger in an electric engineering class who showed me a path to trading.

I glanced at my neighbor’s laptop and saw a forum called “Nuclear Phynance.”

“What’s that?” I whispered.

He smirked. “My retirement plan.”

Turns out, he was building a fixed-income options strategy to quit the 9-to-5 grind by 30. As a broke student with zero market knowledge, I was hooked.

And so began my unglamorous journey into algorithmic trading.

1. The Broke Student Phase: Forex, Leverage, and Lessons in Humility

Desperation sparks questionable decisions. With just $100 earned from part time warehouse job, I dove into forex trading, the “gateway drug” for aspiring algo traders.

Why?

500:1 leverage meant I could 10x my deposit easily (read: amplify losses).
MetaTrader 4 offered free backtesting tools and bots (tempting for a DIYer).
Forums and paid communities promised secret strategies (spoiler: most were garbage).

The harsh reality:

I tested 100s “strategies” - trend following, breakout, mean reversion, martingale... All failed.
My accounts blew up countless times.
Why? Forex is a zero-sum game.

2. The Pivot: From Engineering to Data Wrangling

With graduation came the harsh reality of needing money to survive, leaving me no choice but to focus on a 9-to-5 job and abandon trading.

But life has a funny way of circling back.

My second job? Controlling department analyst. Translation: I learned SQL, Excel macros, and the art of data wrangling. Suddenly, I felt the need to develop strategies myself and not rely on others work.

So I taught myself Python, and rebuilt my approach from scratch.

So after a decade of failures, rebuilds, and hard-life lessons, I decided to create a Substack, that is my answer to the question he sparked:

Can markets be approached like an engineering problem?

2. Why Trust Me?

Trained as an engineer, now work in data analytics. I speak Python, SQL, and pandas fluently.
Burned by forex as a broke student, rebuilt my approach with quant perspective.
Obsessed with process over predictions. (My holy grail? Systems that survive uncertainty.)

This isn’t a side hustle. It’s a curiosity project, and you’re invited to peek over my shoulder.

3. Who’s This For?

You’ll fit right in if you:

✓ Prefer data over dogma
✓ Are tired of “financial influencers” selling courses
✓ Believe risk management is the real alpha

4. The Anti-Promise

I won’t promise you:

❌ “10x returns by Friday”
❌ A secret indicator that “Wall Street hates”
❌ A pat on the back for YOLO-ing into meme stocks

But I will share:

✅ Transparent analysis (including failed experiments)
✅ Frameworks to sharpen your edge

What’s Next? Follow Along

If you’re still reading, you’re my kind of person.

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