As printed on the cover, it is a story and misadventures by the author in the decade when Wall Street went insane. However, it is actually not a pure Wall Street trading adventures. It is actually about a magazine company exclusively for and about traders. As mentioned at the beginning of the book, traders didn't actually earn money - they made it. In fact, this is the ideas behind the said magazine. The author initially focus on how traders see it, make it and how they spent it. A good quoted example is: "For most of us, money equals time. Work a fixed amount of hours and get paid a fixed amount. At Macfutures, there was no correlation... It was an impulsive reward for one smart, or lucky push of a button."... Very true!!!
Unfortunately, the author's company and his life saving were destroyed completely when the crash hit. The initial motto of "See it, Make it, Spent it" ended up with "See it, Spend it, End it"... How cruel it can be and that is why we read this in the book: "Greed is ugly... Make as much money as you can so you can get out of there before it turns you to the Dark Side ~ Fame, it seemed, could prove ugly too." ... Hmm....
To me, this is a very interesting book. Entertainment wise, it is not dull at all. Well, please do not treat it as one of those boring investment stories. End up, we have more than that, as peoples involved in the stories are not purely financial peoples. For example, we have John Travolta, Al Gore and Diana Ross. In fact, reading this book is relaxing too... After all, this is a book that reads like a novel. The true story feels like a fiction and I think every reader will enjoy every single journey created by the author. Credit must be given to the author. He wrote a true story on Wall Street and entrepreneurialism with simple wording... Yet, it is attractive enough for readers to get hooked from the first page! Well, this is also one of the reasons that I finish it in such a short period. I just could not put down the book, LOL.
Having said that, I love this book as it really entertains me for the past 48 hours. However, I must admit that it remains as entertainment and the whole book does not provide me with much of lessons to learn. Frankly, I hardly touch novels. (Oppsss... it is not a novel, LOL). Besides, I think this is one of those stories behind the famous crash.(IMHO, nothing great...) Relatively, Randall's case may not be the worst. I think I personally seen worse scenario than that. At the end, I really find myself do not benefit much from this book despite the entertainment part. As such, although I love this book, I am rating it at 5/10. This book will be one of those books that I would not repeat in the future. At the end, I very much enjoy it. But, I simply do not benefit much from reading it...
Another final flip through and I found this...
ReplyDelete"What 2-and-20 did was encounrage risk. You got to keep 20 percent of everything your fund made, while someone else had to pay 100 percent of everything your fund lost. Heads I win, tails you lose... In fact, it was actually heads I win, tails you lose.. but I still win."
"As any quant will tell you, the riskiest move for a hedge fund - particularly since they were completely unregulated - was not taking risk."
"Cohen would take 30-and-50. You don't like it? Tough...Not only was Cohen turning people away, he was actually giving money back to investors. (His new model: 0-and-100)"