UPDATE: This story has since been declared as a hoax

As journalist Jessica Pressler puts it in her profile of Mohammed 'Mo' Islam, Wall Street and high school are two places where rumours carry real currency. Up until now this 17-year-old New Yorker has been an urban legend - the high school kid who makes millions playing commodity markets on his lunch breaks.

He has already bought himself a BMW, but he doesn't have a licence to drive it. He rents a Manhattan apartment, but his parents won't let him move out.

The upstart grew up in the New York borough of Queens - he is the son of Bengali immigrants and the president of his school’s Investment Club.

When asked by New York Magazine how much he has actually earned he would not give a number - but said that it was in the "high eight figures".

He doesn't buy into the start-up game, the real money is in minerals - 'Mo' made his fortune trading in oil and gold.

He says: “A lot of young people do start-ups, but I think it’s a bubble. Trading and investments will always be there. Money will always be rotating.”

That quote gets very close to Wall Street 'money never sleeps' territory. Jessica Pressler also says that she met the youngster and a few of his close friends over caviar and apple juice.

'Mo' graduates this summer and turns 18 in June. The interview was published today by New York Magazine.

He was also profiled by Buniness Insider while he was only 16.