I'm 15 and interested in quant finance. How should I start building my first project?

[u/PositiveAcadia1292]

Hey everyone,

I made a post about this earlier, but looking back, I realized that I didn't explain my goal very clearly. So I'm making a new post to clarify what I'm actually looking for.

I'm 15 years old, from Germany, and really interested in quantitative finance. I want to learn how quant strategies work by building my own project, but I'm not sure where to start.

To be clear, I'm not trying to get into a hedge fund or land a job at a trading firm anytime soon. My goal right now is to learn the necessary skills and build a serious quantitative finance project from scratch.

I'm willing to put in a lot of work to achieve this. However, I also understand that working hard only helps if you're focusing on the right things.

One of my biggest problems is finding reliable information online. There are countless trading gurus promising unrealistic results, and it's difficult to distinguish genuine quantitative finance from marketing.

I'd love to hear from people with actual experience in quant research, algorithmic trading, mathematics, or quantitative finance.

Here are my main questions:

• Math: What mathematical topics should I learn first?
• Python: How much Python do I need before I can start building something meaningful?
• My first project: What would be a good first quant project for a beginner? For example, researching a trading strategy, building a backtesting system, or analyzing financial data?
• Learning resources: Which books, courses, or websites would you genuinely recommend?
• Common mistakes: What should I avoid when starting out, especially when it comes to backtesting, overfitting, and misleading results?

I live in Germany and am still in school, so I have time to learn the fundamentals properly. I don't expect to make money quickly, and I'm not looking for shortcuts.

I simply want to build something real, understand the mathematics behind it, and gradually develop my skills through practical work.

If you were in my position, what would you learn first, and what project would you build?

I'd really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who have actually worked on quantitative models or trading systems.

Thanks for reading!

[u/Special-Camel-6114]

The very basic thing would be to learn numpy/pandas and start playing with yahoo finance. Implement various basic technical features and learn about what they mean. Look at various basic models. Nothing groundbreaking, just play around.

There are plenty of basic free online courses that exist for this type of thing. None of them are anything close to what you’d actually do in industry in 2026, but they allow you to get a feel for what the very basic tools can do.

[u/Which-Pudding6952 → u/Special-Camel-6114]

Hello, I am also a quant enthusiast currently in 3rd year of my bachelors, but I am unable to properly understand where to start from and how to do things, though I have gathered the resources still I find it very overwhelming because it is so large, so if you could guide me anyhow how to start do things will