Michael Reeves
A computer-vision system tracking goldfish movements beat an r/wallstreetbets sentiment model and outpaced the Nasdaq by roughly 13% over a three-month trading trial.
AI-assisted summary of I Gave My Goldfish $50,000 to Trade Stocks — original source. Check the original for full context.
Source published:
Key ideas
- Michael Reeves constructed a computer vision trading rig using Python, OpenCV color masking, and the Alpaca API to let his pet goldfish, Frederick, execute real-market stock buys based on tank coordinates. (1:13)
- To benchmark the fish, Reeves developed an r/wallstreetbets sentiment analysis bot by training custom models on 10,000 forum posts hand-classified by high-karma community volunteers. (3:33)
- Frederick's random selections outperformed both the r/wallstreetbets algorithm and the broader NASDAQ index by approximately 13% over a three-month test window, yielding $1,007.59 in net profits. (9:09)
- Reeves pitched his goldfish trading framework under the company name 'briefly' at a startup collective house, framing filtration and fish diet as biological hardware optimizations. (9:09)
Detailed notes
## Background Published on YouTube by Michael Reeves on March 31, 2022, this video presents an experiment in automated stock trading while explicitly disclaiming that nothing in the content constitutes professional financial advice. The description promotes the trading platform Public.com and links to official merchandise commemorating the showdown between Frederick the goldfish and WallStreetBets.
## TL;DR Frustrated by losing his own money trading stocks, Michael Reeves builds a computer vision system that allows his pet goldfish, Frederick, to execute automated stock trades based on its position in an aquarium. To test the fish's viability, Michael also builds a natural language processing algorithm trained on crowdsourced r/wallstreetbets sentiment to run a parallel portfolio. Over a three-month trial, Frederick consistently beats the Reddit-driven bot and outperforms the broader market, securing over $1,000 in profits. After delivering a hilariously unhinged startup pitch to baffled founders at a tech incubator, Michael cashes out the gains to buy luxury aquarium equipment and retire Frederick from trading.
## Atmosphere & style The presentation is driven by Michael Reeves's signature chaotic, deadpan humor, combining hyperactive parodies of finance 'grindset' culture with legitimate, excessive technical engineering. His delivery oscillates between manic self-deprecation about his programming habits and completely straight-faced commitments to absurd concepts, such as treating water filtration as hardware optimization for a stock-picking fish. The mood reaches a peak of secondhand embarrassment and surreal comedy when he pitches the fish-trading hedge fund to bewildered startup founders who struggle to discern whether he is speaking in metaphor or genuinely proposing aquatic equity trading.
## Bulletin - [01:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=73s) Michael Reeves constructed a computer vision trading rig using Python, OpenCV color masking, and the Alpaca API to let his pet goldfish, Frederick, execute real-market stock buys based on tank coordinates. - [03:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=213s) To benchmark the fish, Reeves developed an r/wallstreetbets sentiment analysis bot by training custom models on 10,000 forum posts hand-classified by high-karma community volunteers. - [09:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=549s) Frederick's random selections outperformed both the r/wallstreetbets algorithm and the broader NASDAQ index by approximately 13% over a three-month test window, yielding $1,007.59 in net profits. - [09:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=549s) Reeves pitched his goldfish trading framework under the company name 'briefly' at a startup collective house, framing filtration and fish diet as biological hardware optimizations.
## Key takeaways - [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=3s) Michael Reeves satirizes hustle-culture day trading after blowing his Robinhood account, motivating an automated experiment to outsource trading decisions. - [01:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=73s) Frederick chooses stocks via a computer vision pipeline that isolates orange pixels against a clean white wall to determine which side of the aquarium he occupies. - [01:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=73s) The automated system uses a custom relay box to control tank lighting at market open and executes trades via the Alpaca API. - [03:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=213s) Commercial natural language processing datasets fail on r/wallstreetbets slang, necessitating custom categorization of 10,000 historic Reddit posts. - [03:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=213s) Reeves spent a month building a dedicated React application for 10 high-karma Reddit volunteers to classify 1,000 posts each rather than manually labeling them himself. - [06:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=401s) Personal finance creator Graham Stephan blindly reviewed both portfolios and favored Frederick's holdings over the volatile meme stock selection of the Reddit bot. - [08:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=493s) The r/wallstreetbets bot experienced a severe end-of-period crash, while Frederick's diversified large-cap picks maintained consistent gains. - [09:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=549s) Frederick beat the NASDAQ by roughly 13% across the quarter, prompting Reeves to present the concept as a fintech startup named 'briefly'. - [09:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=549s) Startup founders at a collective house mistook the fish-based trading mechanism for an extended software metaphor before realizing the picks were literally made by a goldfish. - [10:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=650s) Frederick earned a total of $1,007.59 in net gains, which Reeves used to purchase luxury filtration and premium food to retire the fish. - [13:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=785s) The entire $50,000 trading budget was derived from sponsor funds provided by Public.com without their prior knowledge of the experimental design.
## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=3s) A Day in the Life of a Day Trader
Michael Reeves opens with a parody of hustle-culture morning routines. Waking up at 2:30 a.m. to "rise and grind," he grabs a rushed breakfast because he is supposedly far too busy to cook, remarking that it has been six months since he quit YouTube to trade stocks full time. After taking what he calls a "nice casual jog" to get the blood pumping and relax the body, he sits down in front of a monitor filled with charts to trade options, futures, and absurd meme cryptocurrencies. He frantically screams buy and sell orders into his headset—shouting to sell off every last drop of worthless coins before declaring that he executed a trade and made money.
The illusion quickly falls apart. Michael drops the high-energy persona, staring directly into the camera to confess the grim reality of his trading career. He admits that he actually has no idea what he is doing, doesn't know how to trade stocks, and lost all his money on Robinhood. This failure sets up the central premise of his experiment: finding something—anything—that can trade stocks on his behalf so he doesn't have to.
- Michael claims he hasn't uploaded a video in eight months. - His disastrous track record includes blowing his account balance on Robinhood. - Michael candidly explains his motivation: “Listen, I don't know how to trade stocks, man; I lost all my money on Robinhood, I have no idea what I'm doing.”
---
[01:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=73s) Building Computer Vision for Frederick the Goldfish
Michael introduces his pet goldfish, Frederick, whom he plans to turn into an automated stock trader. The concept is straightforward: track Frederick's position inside his aquarium. Every morning when the stock market opens, the program presents two random companies on the left and right sides of the screen. Frederick selects a stock by swimming to and lingering on that side of the tank. The software registers his preference and automatically executes a buy order using the sponsor's money. To make the computer vision reliable, Michael deliberately set the tank against a stark, blank white wall. While viewers might think this was done to provide adequate lighting or avoid overstimulating the fish, Michael clarifies that it was purely pragmatic: it eliminates cluttered background noise so his code can simply hunt for orange pixels.
Michael writes a Python script utilizing an image color mask to isolate the fish. After applying an orange threshold, the raw mask produces noisy speckles. He applies post-processing filters to clean up the image, detects the remaining orange blob, draws a bounding circle around Frederick's coordinates, and overlays that tracking circle onto the live camera feed. Next, he wires the tank lighting to an external relay box controlled by his code. During an initial live dry run without real capital, the program turns on the lights, displays stock tickers on the screen, and tracks Frederick as he hovers over the ticker for Altria (MO) instead of Boeing (BA). Thrilled that the fish made an autonomous pick, Michael prepares to connect the system to real-world capital using the Alpaca trading API.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Frederick Stock Selection Architecture accDescr: Diagram illustrating how the camera captures the goldfish position, processes the image, and places stock orders via API.
subgraph VisionPipeline["Computer Vision Pipeline"] A["Live Camera Feed<br/>(White Wall Background)"] --> B["Color Masking<br/>(Filter for Orange)"] B --> C["Post-Processing<br/>(Denoise & Clean)"] C --> D["Blob Detection &<br/>Coordinate Tracking"] end
subgraph TradingDecision["Decision & Execution"] D --> E["Side Selection<br/>(Left vs Right Ticker)"] E --> F["Alpaca API"] F --> G["Brokerage Buy Order"] end ```
- Frederick chooses between two randomly paired stock tickers based on the side of the tank he occupies most. - A relay box automatically controls the lighting to initiate trading when markets open. - Michael selects Alpaca API to interface between Frederick's tracking logic and live market orders. - Reflecting on his visual tracking setup, Michael explains: “I did it so I can write the detection software to just look for orange pixels of the fish and it won't get fucked up by a shitty messy background.”
---
[03:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=213s) The WallStreetBets Challenge and Natural Language Processing
Just as Michael prepares to let Frederick trade with real funds, an inner debate erupts over r/wallstreetbets—the infamous Reddit forum renowned for reckless retail trading, meme stocks, and massive speculative wins and losses. While one side of Michael views the community as reckless amateurs losing tens of thousands of dollars in seconds, the other side views them as folk heroes riding Gamestop and Tesla to effortless "free tendies." Rather than picking between the two strategies, Michael decides to pit them against each other in an ultimate showdown: fish versus man.
To turn the Reddit community into an algorithmic competitor, Michael builds a sentiment analysis bot using machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). The bot must scan r/wallstreetbets posts to determine whether sentiment around a particular stock ticker is positive or negative. However, standard public NLP datasets only contain conventional conversational English, which completely fails to interpret Reddit's specialized slang like "tendies," "stonks," "YOLO," and "boomers."
To create a tailored dataset, Michael scrapes the top 10,000 all-time posts from r/wallstreetbets. Rather than manually labeling them himself—a chore he estimates would take four to five hours—he spends an entire month learning the React framework to build a custom crowd-sourcing web app. He tweets asking forum members for their usernames, identifies the top 10 active contributors ranked by karma, and has those 10 volunteers label 1,000 posts each. With the custom-trained model complete, the Reddit bot operates in tandem with Frederick: every morning it parses the daily top posts, identifies a stock the forum is bullish on, and purchases it.
- Wall Street Bets slang requires custom-labeled sentiment data because off-the-shelf NLP libraries cannot parse meme terminology. - The top 10,000 posts on r/wallstreetbets were downloaded for classification. - Ten high-karma r/wallstreetbets users categorized 1,000 posts each on Michael's custom-built React website. - Michael defends his excessive engineering approach: “And that's how you turn a five-hour task into a one-and-a-half month task, because I'm a programmer and that's what we do.”
---
[06:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=401s) The Competition and Financial Advice from Graham Stephan
The competition begins with wild swings across both portfolios. Frederick takes an early lead by picking Nike, while the r/wallstreetbets algorithm counters with Lucid and GameStop. The Reddit bot experiences extreme volatility, mirroring the erratic sentiment of retail meme investors, while Frederick makes surprise moves into large caps like Costco and Meta. As market volatility spikes, Michael decides to consult a professional to evaluate the two portfolios blind, visiting popular personal finance YouTuber and real estate investor Graham Stephan.
Michael presents both anonymized portfolios to Graham. Reviewing the holdings, Graham notes that while the broader market has been in a downturn over the past three months, he feels significantly more confident in Portfolio 1 compared to the meme-heavy holdings in Portfolio 2. When Michael reveals that Portfolio 1 was managed not by an advanced institutional algorithm but by a pet goldfish named Frederick—and asks if viewers should invest in a fund managed by the fish—Graham is left utterly stunned and speechless.
- Portfolio 1 (Frederick) favored stable large-cap equities such as Nike, Costco, and Meta. - Portfolio 2 (r/wallstreetbets) loaded up on volatile meme names like GameStop and Lucid. - Graham Stephan immediately flags Portfolio 2 as high-risk, stating: “The market's been down, pretty much everything has been down last three months, yeah, but if I were to, I would feel way more comfortable with the first one.”
---
[08:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=493s) The Verdict and Startup Ambitions
Returning to check the final balances of the competition, Michael watches the climactic finish. While r/wallstreetbets experiences wild spikes, hoping for an epic run "to the moon," their portfolio abruptly collapses into the red. Frederick’s diversified, seemingly random picks weather the storm far better, finishing comfortably ahead of the collective hive mind of Reddit. Michael rejoices wildly at the result, declaring the goldfish vastly superior to the self-proclaimed stock savants of the internet.
Riding high on Frederick’s trading success, Michael resolves not to stop at a mere YouTube experiment. Convinced that the fish tracking mechanism represents a legitimately viable investing algorithm, he drafts a formal startup pitch deck. Intending to turn Frederick's decisions into an official hedge fund, Michael schedules meetings with venture capitalists to solicit real investment capital for his fish-powered enterprise.
- The r/wallstreetbets portfolio suffered a severe crash near the end of the tracking window. - Frederick's portfolio officially beat the r/wallstreetbets bot over the three-month testing period. - Celebrating Frederick's victory over retail traders, Michael yells: “That settles it: fish is the superior technology.”
[09:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=549s) Pitching Fish Technology at a Startup Hype House
Michael Reeves attends what he expected to be a standard startup meeting, only to discover it is essentially a startup founder collective house where each resident has launched their own company. Allowed by management to pitch to the room, Michael presents under the banner of "briefly," which he frames as a small financial technology startup aimed at addressing the reality that many inexperienced retail traders lose massive amounts of money in the stock market. He explains that his company runs two core approaches: a WallStreetBets algorithm based on sentiment analysis, and a second system driven by fish tracking. While the WallStreetBets model performs well below market averages, he reveals that the fish tracker managed to outperform the NASDAQ by roughly 13% over the prior quarter.
```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Briefly Trading Pitch Architecture accDescr: Diagram showing the two algorithmic models compared during Michael Reeves's pitch to startup founders. subgraph MarketInputs ["Market Sources"] WSB["r/wallstreetbets Sentiment"] FishInput["Fredrick the Goldfish Movements"] end subgraph Engine ["Briefly Platform"] WSB --> WSBAlgo["WSB Trading Bot"] FishInput --> FishCam["Camera Motion Tracker"] end subgraph Results ["Performance Outcome"] WSBAlgo --> Below["Well Below Market Average"] FishCam --> Above["Beats NASDAQ by ~13%"] end ```
Michael pivots the pitch away from pure finance toward biological hardware optimization. He insists the primary bottleneck holding the fish technology back from even greater financial returns comes down to water clarity, mechanical filtration, and dietary upgrades. Pointing to species data, he notes that while typical goldfish live 8 to 12 years, improved environmental parameters could potentially extend Frederick's lifespan into an outlier range of 20-plus years. The founders in the room are visibly bewildered. When Michael opens the floor for questions, an attendee asks, “so the fish is determined in your stockpix,” leading Michael to clarify that a front-facing camera simply tracks which half of the tank Frederick occupies when offered a binary choice between two equities. After receiving baffled stares, Michael leaves the room cursing, stating, “you know not everyone can see the vision and that's okay i'm not i'm sounding like i'm mad i'm not not mad or anything.”
[10:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=650s) Cashing Out and Frederick's Retirement
Accepting that the venture capital ecosystem is not yet ready for his aquatic trading system, Michael decides to liquidate the entire portfolio and withdraw the cash. Recognizing that he is not the one who earned the windfall, he dedicates the full profits to the true earner. In total, Frederick generated $1,007.59 in net gains. Holding up the cash, Michael exclaims, “can you believe my goldfish made this and then i went back to where i got him.”
Michael returns to the local pet store where he originally purchased the goldfish out of a crowded feeder tank. He browses the aisles to purchase premium supplies, asking the store clerk for the highest-end aquarium filters and gourmet fish food. Handing over Frederick's earnings, he instructs the bewildered cashier to keep the remainder as a tip, explaining that it was Frederick who earned the money. Michael reveals that Frederick has officially earned enough to retire comfortably to live out the rest of his days in a luxury tank setup. Addressing his upload cadence, Michael jokes that he blacked out for eight months and procrastinated until the last moment, though he notes he still uploads faster than Internet Historian.
- **Total net profit generated by Frederick:** $1,007.59 in cash. - **Upgrades purchased:** High-grade aquarium filtration units and specialized fish food.
[12:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=725s) The Frederick vs. WallStreetBets Data Poster
To document the algorithmic experiment, Michael showcases a massive wall poster he designed containing high-resolution 8K data graphs comparing Frederick's trades directly against the WallStreetBets bot. The print measures approximately five feet long—matching his own height—and catalogs every stock purchased, the timestamps of the executions, and which system initiated the trade.
Michael points viewers to his merchandise site, remarking on the change in his store branding. He explains that `pissbaby.art` is no longer active because he wanted to move past crude bathroom humor toward something more refined, before admitting that the real reason is that he simply forgot to renew the domain and an opportunistic buyer snatched it up. As a result, the poster is hosted on `pissbaby.store`. He signs off by thanking Frederick and jokingly predicting his next upload will not arrive until 2025.
[13:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=785s) Public.com Sponsorship and the Reality of Frederick's Budget
The video concludes with a sponsored segment for the commission-free investment platform Public.com. Michael highlights that while ordinary viewers cannot match Frederick's innate trading genius, the platform allows users to buy and sell stocks, browse other investors' public portfolios, and learn community strategies. Crucially, he underscores that Public does not route trades through market makers or sell order flow data—a structural conflict of interest he specifically researched while drafting his pitch for the startup hype house (Launch House).
Michael invites viewers to follow his profile on the platform. He originally attempted to register under the handle "piss nugget," but after the company rejected the vulgar username, he settled on `@michaelreeves`, where he pledges to trade purely based on Frederick's future movements. In a final disclosure, Michael reveals the behind-the-scenes reality of the experiment's funding: “it was their budget that went to my goldfish and wall street bed spot for investing so they don't know where that went and this is how they will find out.”
Following the sign-off, a post-credits clip captures an attendee from the startup hype house reflecting on Michael's earlier presentation: “i thought he was speaking in an extended metaphor and i was like i love how trained his mind is commits so intensely to this analogy of the like the fish to his algorithm yeah and then i was like oh my god.”
## Notable quotes > [03:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA&t=213s) And that's how you turn a five-hour task into a one-and-a-half month task, because I'm a programmer and that's what we do. — Michael Reeves
## Mentioned Michael Reeves, Frederick, Robinhood, Python, Altria, Boeing, Alpaca API, Reddit, r/wallstreetbets, React, Nike, Lucid, GameStop, Tesla, Costco, Meta, Graham Stephan, Briefly, NASDAQ, Internet Historian, Public.com, Launch House
## Video description Go to http://Public.com/reeves and you’ll receive a free stock worth up to $300 once you open an account. *This is not investment advice. Offer valid for U.S. residents 18+ and subject to account approval. See Public.com/disclosures/
I am not a qualified licensed investment advisor. Nothing in this video constitutes professional and/or financial advice. This video is for entertainment purposes only. Do not do what I did in this video.
fredrick fish poster: https://www.pissbaby.store/products/723023-fredrick-vs-wsb-poster
fish
other places: https://twitter.com/michaelreeves https://www.instagram.com/michaelreeves808/
songs: Pax - Gee (Disco Remix) Everett Kim Tracks
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKD3vPD6ZA)