First Book Review

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Well it has only been a couple of days since I finished up my MBA work, but I was so excited to be able to read for pleasure again that I have already finished book #1. Although it was still about finance and investing, it was still a fantastic read that is incredibly well written and enjoyable to read. And for anyone out there that doesn't know what CDO, CDS, CDO^2, or EMH, stands for or who Fisher Black and Myron Scholes are, no fear, it is all explained with remarkable clarity in this book.

The book is called "The Quants: How a new breed of math whizzes conquered wall street and nearly destroyed it." What this book does better than any other writing on the current financial crisis that I have read is put everything into context. The Quants goes all the way back to the beginning of hedge funds, it doesn't just start with the 2000's. In an industry where models are built upon the past it is only reasonable that to understand our current financial system it is important to go back to the beginning and see how it evolved. This book is primarily about hedge funds and math genius' claiming to have found the ever elusive "Alpha." What this book is not about is the how to trade or the history of mutual funds or trading floors. So if your looking to gain deep insights into a few key individuals that were/are major players (the men in this book each managed hundreds of billions in assets when including leverage) in the world of finance, hedge funds, and the exotic products that helped to accelerate the downfall of our current system, this is the best one I have found.