Fiasco - Hardcover

Partnoy, Frank

3.92

2,155 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393046222 ISBN 13: 9780393046229

Publisher: Profile Books Ltd, 1997

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F.I.A.S.C.O. is an insider's diary, a shocking education in the jungle of high finance in the 1990s from New York to Tokyo. It tracks the progress of a young Morgan Stanley salesman as he learns the ropes of this sophisticated jungle, where billions of dollars are lost in the creation and trading of securities so unlikely and so complicated that almost nobody - certainly not the unwary or undereducated buyer - understands them. And some of that money, whether you know it or not, may be yours. Frank Partnoy's journey is partly comical, and full of incredible characters, but what he learns should stir fear in anyone who owns mutual funds, stocks, or even insurance. Partnoy's colleagues sharpen their killer instincts at an annual drunken skeet-shooting competition called F.I.A.S.C.O., the Fixed Income Annual Sporting Clays Outing. Against well-trained derivatives salesmen, buyers don't face much better odds than a clay pigeon, and the actual fiascoes involve billions of dollars of well-publicized losses at Orange County, Barings, Procter & Gamble, and many others. In 1994, when the author attended F.I.A.S.C.O., and when the first big derivatives losses hit, the rallying cry at Morgan Stanley should have struck fear into the heart of any investor: "There's blood in the water. Let's go kill someone." Partnoy's story shows how Morgan Stanley's sales force put that advice to work.

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A lively account of life in the mid-1990s by one of Wall Street's own, Frank Partnoy. . . . Mr. Partnoy's book has a serious mission. It seeks to show that derivatives . . . are but the latest method that Wall Street is using to skin Main Street. . . . Mr. Partnoy's detailed allegations of specific trades and the cynical way that Wall Street treats its customers is likely to attract attention.--Peter Truell F.I.A.S.C.O. is a ringside seat on the nastiest and most important game being played on Wall Street today. Think of derivatives trading as a blood sport, with the unsuspecting consumer as the prey. Read this book, or else. . . . --Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker--Michael Lewis

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Huge bestseller about the cut-throat trading world returns with gripping new material.

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PublisherProfile Books Ltd
Publication date1997
ISBN 10 0393046222
ISBN 13 9780393046229
BindingHardcover
Number of pages252
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F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street

Frank Partnoy

Published by W. W. Norton & Company (1997)

ISBN 10: 0393046222 ISBN 13: 9780393046229

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F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street

Partnoy, Frank

Published by W. W. Norton & Company (1997)

ISBN 10: 0393046222 ISBN 13: 9780393046229

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F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street

Partnoy, Frank

Published by W. W. Norton & Company (1997)

ISBN 10: 0393046222 ISBN 13: 9780393046229

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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. First Edition. The Orange County bankruptcy. The fall of Barings Bank. Shocking losses at Procter & Gamble, Dell Computer, and Gibson Greetings. The Mexican peso crisis. What did all these disasters have in common? A class of financial instruments known as derivatives-the most dangerous (and profitable) products ever devised on Wall Street. In F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street, a former derivatives salesman takes readers onto the trading floor of a leading investment bank-and in a tell-all, no-holds-barred expos�, reveals for the first time the ugly truth about these complex financial products and the people who peddle them. Writing with the same eye for telling details as Michael Lewis in Liars Poker, Frank Partnoy shows how the once genteel world of investment banking has now become a place where the rallying cry is "Theres blood in the water. Lets go kill someone."Partnoy was in his late twenties when he landed the job of his dreams-a position in Morgan Stanleys Derivatives Products Group, the single most profitable division of the venerable investment bank. With vivid character sketches and a wealth of funny-yet-disturbing anecdotes, Partnoy takes us inside the culture of Morgan Stanleys derivatives group. Encouraged by upper management and egged on by gun-toting senior salesmen, derivatives had become a business-as-war, take-no-prisoners operation where people pored over Soldier of Fortune and gloated when they sold a product that "ripped off" a clients face.As he leads us through the ups and downs of his fifteen months at Morgan Stanley, Partnoy explains in plain English what derivatives are-and shows how he and the other "rocket scientists" at the bank custom-designed these arcane financial products to dodge government regulators, encourage foreign currency speculation by pension and mutual funds, disguise risky gambles with AAA Standard & Poors ratings, and avoid capital gains taxes for weathy individuals. He also details, for the first time, the deal that earned Morgan Stanley the fattest fee in Wall Street history-a $74.5 million profit for devising a derivative that wiped hundreds of millions in losses off a Japanese companys balance sheet.But dreaming up ever more complicated derivatives products-Dollarized Yield Curve Notes, Constant Maturity Treasury Floaters, Trigger Notes, and Total Return Swaps, to name a few-was never enough. For the bank to earn its fee, they had to be sold-usually, as Partnoy notes, either to "cheaters" (fund managers who wanted riskier investments than their regulators or charters normally allowed) or to "widows and orphans" (unsophisticated fund managers who couldnt understand the risks in fine print).Throughout the book, Partnoy gives us a trading-floor view of the disasters fueled by derivatives trading and provides the formula of greed, daring, and ingenuity that are the basic ingredients of all derivatives. Written with humor, insight, and a mounting sense of moral outrage, F.I.A.S.C.O. is both a brilliant insiders account of investment banking today and a blistering indictment of the largely unregulated market in derivatives-a book that everyone who has a pension plan or invests in mutual funds needs to read. Seller Inventory # DADAX0393046222

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