Name: Liar's Poker
Rating: 3.788461538461538 (78 reviews)
ISBN: 9780393338690

Michael Lewis

The author recounts his experiences on the lucrative Wall Street bond market of the 1980s, where young traders made millions in a very short time, in a humorous account of greed and epic folly.

Liar's Poker

Greg Talbot

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned" - The Colour of Money (1986) We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules. ~Buzzie Bavasi In the modern gold rush (p.9), the 1980s when the business cycle was no responsible for the interest rate of bonds. The variability of bonds, rise of junk bonds and the mortgage backed securities and CDOS created a revolution. These products drove new markets and turned the fledgling Salomon Brother, then the most profitable firm in the world, hires to massive wealth. Lewis captures the feeling of the go-go 1980s in lines like “I was frightened to miss the express bus on which everyone i knew seemed to have a reserved seat, for fear that there would be no other (p.31)". He also spends great detail describing his training program, and the reality of working for the investment firm. Not having a finance background, the details and technical understanding escaped me at times. There are other books to better understand bonds and trading. But as a story of hubris, great expectations, and credibility as an investment trader (flair persistence and luck (p.61)), few books are as entertaining. Great book for anyone interested in trading, early career stories, and the thrill of the macro market ride.

From mere trainee to lowly geek, to triumphal Big Swinging Dick: that was Michael Lewis' pell-mell progress through the dealing rooms of Salomon Brothers in New York and London during the heady mid-1980s when they were probably the world's most powerful and profitable merchant bank. A true-life Bonfire of the Vanities, funny, frightening, breathless and heartless, his is a tale of hysterical greed and ambition set in an obsessed, enclosed world.

Honestly interesting to see how banking used to be. No regulations and people will abuse their powers. 

abhi 

Aamna

The time was the 1980s. The place was Wall Street. The game was called Liar’s Poker. Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years—a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business. From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game of bluffing and deception, here is Michael Lewis’s knowing and hilarious insider’s account of an unprecedented era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune.

gagan singh

William Martinsson 

Seth Newkirk

Dean Fremder

John Manoogian III

Michael M. Lewis

The author recounts his experiences on the lucrative Wall Street bond market of the 1980s, where young traders made millions quickly and easily, in a humorous account of greed and epic folly

Liar's Poker

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