Work the problem like an analyst.
This is a small finance desk for high-school students who want to experience the rigor on Wallstreet. The cohort works through one live market question, from first reading to final view. Students learn how to handle sources, challenge assumptions, and turn scattered information into a clean argument.
Weekly sessions are built around discussion, evidence, and mentor review. The final output is a finance research report with a point of view.
A finance desk for ambitious high-school students.
The cohort begins with one market question. Students read into the issue, study the evidence, and learn how a serious finance view is formed: what matters, what is priced in, where the assumptions break, and what the market may be missing.
Weekly desk meetings
Each week, students meet with the mentor to review the problem, challenge weak claims, compare evidence, and decide what the desk needs to solve next.
Analyst-style follow-up
The work does not stop after the call. Students use Slack to share sources, ask sharper questions, and keep the report moving between desk meetings.
A serious student desk
Students work around other finance-curious peers. You see how strong students think, where arguments break, and where your own view needs more evidence.
Final desk report
The cohort builds toward a final research report. Contributor credit is tied to meaningful work, clear thinking, and real ownership of part of the analysis.
Featuring Alex Dryden, former Senior Economist at J.P. Morgan.
Alex Dryden brings the exact mix this cohort needs: institutional market judgment, research discipline, and the ability to help students think through finance the way analysts actually do.
He spent more than a decade at J.P. Morgan Asset Management as a Global Investment Strategist, working across London and New York. Later, as an Executive Director and Global Market Strategist on the Global Market Insights strategy team, his job was to turn macro noise into usable market judgment.
Today, Alex is pursuing a PhD in Economics at SOAS, University of London, with research focused on sovereign defaults, currency markets, and bond markets. That is why this first desk problem sits so naturally in his lane: debt, policy credibility, market pressure, and what investors do when the story stops adding up.
Meet Alex Dryden, former senior economist at J.P. Morgan.
Alex spent more than a decade inside institutional markets, working across macroeconomics, central banks, fixed income, and U.S. bond markets. At GRF, the goal is to bring that research-desk discipline into a high-school setting: define the problem, read the evidence, build the view, defend the view.
J.P. Morgan background.
Former Senior economist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Alex brings more than a decade of experience across macro, investment strategy, central banks, fixed income, and bond markets. During his time at J.P. Morgan, he worked across the New York and London offices, contributing to the firm's global market insights and strategy development.
Sovereign debt research.
Alex is currently a PhD researcher at SOAS, specializing in sovereign defaults, currency markets, bond markets, and the financial architecture behind debt stress.
A voice in financial media.
His market commentary is often quoted at: The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, and institutional market platforms.
Published climate finance work.
His research on debt-for-nature swaps has appeared in Asia Development Review and has been presented at Cambridge, including work on a database of 169 transactions across 45 countries.
Why this matters for students: the first cohort gives students a controlled version of real institutional research work. One problem, one mentor, one desk, and a final report shaped by the same habits analysts use: evidence, judgment, revision, and a clear view.
Apply for the cohortThe desk problem: When markets stop believing the narrative.
The first desk problem is sovereign risk. Not as a textbook chapter. As an analyst would see it: a country’s currency starts weakening, reserves get thinner, bond yields move higher, investors become harder to convince, and every policy mistake starts to matter more.
Students will work through the messy middle stage. When is a selloff just noise? When does it become a funding problem? Why do markets give some governments more time and punish others almost immediately? The final report is built around answering that kind of question with evidence, not vibes.
Eight weeks inside an analyst-style research process.
The rhythm is built around how serious research actually develops: briefing, source work, argument, challenge, revision, final output. The calls keep the desk moving. The sharper thinking usually happens between them.
The desk opens
Students meet Alex, receive the opening brief, and begin with a curated source base instead of wandering into the internet swamp.
Problem framing
The desk defines the core question and maps the moving parts: debt load, currency pressure, reserves, policy credibility, and market confidence.
Evidence building
Students work through sources, data, country examples, currency moves, reserve pressure, bond yields, and what those signals actually suggest.
Argument development
The desk shapes the central view, then each student owns a clearer part of the analysis.
Draft and revision
The final report is tightened until it reads like a serious research note: clear problem, clear evidence, clear view.
Apply for the Research Desk Cohort.
GRF is selective for fit. Students do not need to arrive as finance experts. They do need curiosity, consistency, and the willingness to think like analysts: read carefully, ask better questions, revise the view, and take feedback seriously.
Seats are limited because the desk only works if the mentor can see who is thinking, who is contributing, and who is actually doing the work.
Start your application.
Tell us who you are, what you are curious about, and why this analyst-style research desk feels like the right room for you.
A finance desk, scaled for serious high-school students.
Students work with Alex Dryden on sovereign defaults, currency pressure, and bond market stress through an analyst-style process: opening brief, source work, debate, revision, and a final finance research report.