JOSEPH PLAZO OUTSMARTED WALL STREET—AND HANDED THE PLAYBOOK TO STUDENTS

By Special Report by Forbes Technology DeskHe wasn’t from the finance elite. That’s how he beat them all.In a hot Quezon City apartment, with fans off and lights out, Joseph Plazo kept coding—driven by vision alone.His gear was outdated. His ambition wasn’t.He built, in obscurity, a system that sensed emotion before markets reacted.That sys

By Forbes ContributorWall Street never saw him coming—because Joseph Plazo never played by its rules.Quezon City, Philippines — A decade ago, Joseph Plazo coded algorithms during brownouts, lit by candles and ambition.A secondhand laptop. A wobbly table. But the simulations ran.He was coding a tool the world hadn’t asked for—an algorithm th