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The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History |  | Author: Gregory Zuckerman
Publisher: Broadway Business
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $14.83
as of 3/22/2010 05:34 CDT details
You Save: $11.17 (43%)
New (32) Used (14) from $12.40
Seller: OB1S
Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 153
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0385529910
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.645092
EAN: 9780385529914
ASIN: 0385529910
Publication Date: November 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780385529914 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected--that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall. Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing. He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street. But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark. He just wasn't sure how to do it. Colleagues at investment banks scoffed at him and investors dismissed him. Even pros skeptical about housing shied away from the complicated derivative investments that Paulson was just learning about. But Paulson and a handful of renegade investors such as Jeffrey Greene and Michael Burry began to bet heavily against risky mortgages and precarious financial companies. Timing is everything, though. Initially, Paulson and the others lost tens of millions of dollars as real estate and stocks continued to soar. Rather than back down, however, Paulson redoubled his bets, putting his hedge fund and his reputation on the line.
In the summer of 2007, the markets began to implode, bringing Paulson early profits, but also sparking efforts to rescue real estate and derail him. By year's end, though, John Paulson had pulled off the greatest trade in financial history, earning more than $15 billion for his firm--a figure that dwarfed George Soros's billion-dollar currency trade in 1992. Paulson made billions more in 2008 by transforming his gutsy move. Some of the underdog investors who attempted the daring trade also reaped fortunes. But others who got the timing wrong met devastating failure, discovering that being early and right wasn't nearly enough.
Written by the prizewinning reporter who broke the story in The Wall Street Journal, The Greatest Trade Ever is a superbly written, fast-paced, behind-the-scenes narrative of how a contrarian foresaw an escalating financial crisis--that outwitted Chuck Prince, Stanley O'Neal, Richard Fuld, and Wall Street's titans--to make financial history.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 52
 Great book March 20, 2010
Irene Yen (Fairfax, VA USA)
I like this book very much because it teach me:
1. What is hedge fund doing
2. What will take to become a great trader
3. Every success lie in the detail analysis and persistent execution.
Now I know I don't have the personality and guts to become a hedge fund manager nor
a great trader like John, Bob, etc.
It help me to focus (and content) and my own small fund... maybe 5 - 10 years from now,
I have the personality for it.
Greatest Trade is much better than Lewis's Big Short March 19, 2010
Jack Bartell
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Go with The Greatest Trade Ever if you want just one book on the Bank/Real Estate melt-down. Excellent look under the covers on Credit Default Swaps and who got caught holding the bag. Knowing what to bet against is only 10% of the problem. Paulson and few others figured out how to trade it and make money. Very cool story.
Fascinating March 17, 2010
Mary Jo Lewis (Eugene, Or)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved this book. It is an absolutely fascinating look at the backdrop of the financial meltdown of 2008. Great story, great characters. It should be required reading.
 Did Paulson Himself Charter this Book? March 8, 2010
S. Bern (St. Paul, MN United States)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is a 30k foot level view of the financial crisis, poorly conceived, poorly executed. I've read just about all of Michael Lewis's books and articles covering the financial crisis, and he did a piece for Portfolio Mag. before it went under about the same topic. By the end of that article I was on the edge of my seat because he took you INTO the action, you were sitting there making a trade. I still remember Lewis's description of the traders in his article sitting in Sept. 08, shaking, watching traders leave the NY Stock exchange, knowing what they'd just pulled off. Anyway, compare that to this... the whole thing is written with an air of naivete and awestruck envy, like as if Zuckerman asked Paulson to put together a roundup of his accomplishments so the former could introduce the latter at a cocktail party or something, or Zuckerman wants to get invited to the big "bashes" he continually says Paulson hosts.
Zuckerman also looses credibility throughout the book. For example, on page 72, Zuckerman discusses Paulson's first foray into Credit Default Swaps (CDSes). After making a $500k bet, to insure $100 million, he writes "Soon their position faced some small losses. They discovered that the value of CDS protection falls as the underlying debt gets closer to maturity." OK, really? Zuckerman expects me to believe that they didn't know this? Paulson and co had been playing in derivative markets for decades, and this is standard behavior of most, perhaps all, date-based derivatives, and I think I learned this in my undergrad finance course the first week. Zuckerman gradually looses credibility like this the whole book until @ the end we wonder if he really knows what he's writing about.
Another example of the just strange reporting (p. 38): "Paulson went out of his way to embrace Jenny and her family. The couple agreed to wed in an Episcopalian church in Southhampton, and Paulson became friendly with the priest. Light streamed through the seaside church's Tiffany windows as the sun set and the ceremony began." You would, reasonably, expect this paragraph to be followed by, well, a description of the ceremony perhaps? Or an anecdote on the significance of Paulson getting friendly w/ the priest? You'd be wrong on both counts -- this is just an example of many strange irrelevant facts unskillfully woven into the book -- the next paragraph actually jumps forward 3 years and talks about other aspects of Paulson's private life. That's all we hear about the priest and the ceremony!
Anyway, the writing style here is not well developed -- gets annoying after about the first 50 pages.
Good for Somebody March 2, 2010
R. Spell (Memphis, TN USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
After reading so many books of the recent economic tsunami this approaches the subject from a different direction, those who successfully profited on a large scale. Now, this is particularly painful as a Mortgage Trader who began giving speeches in 2004 of "The Coming Crash in Home Prices". Unfortunately my largest bond fund was heavily invested in BBB tranches of mortgage securitizations and I was too bull headed/stubborn to exit this tragic occurrence. But this book also shows the mechanism that so few on Wall Street used until too late, some of which were thought not to be available to individuals but proven wrong here.
But is this any reason to not enjoy American Capitalism at its best as a different investors including John Paulson took contrary postions while watching them drop in value until the ultimate collapse made them wealthy beyond imagination. While normal length, this book reads incredibly fast and does not bog down in trying to explain all of the entries of mortgage securitizations. I think it does an exceptional job of stating just enough about the instruments to give a good understanding to the reader allowing him to focus on the importance of "the greatest trade ever".
If you are to read one book about the crash, this would be it. I can't recommend this book higher.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 52
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