When Genius Failed

I finished "When Genius Failed" this past week. I recommend it. Here's a teaser...

Through the middle of August, Long-Term Capital had been having a bad year, but only a bad year such as any fund, or any capitalistic enterprise, must sooner or later suffer. Its reputation, like its capital, remained intact. Its overall record sparkled, and its name, among the members of the financial cognoscenti who truly knew the firm, often gave rise to the very term "genius." Long -Term was unknown to the general public, but that is how Meriwether and his boys wanted it, and that, of course, is how they expected the fund to remain. They could hardly have had a glimmer of the large, even historic events in which they were to play a leading role, nor of how radically their fortunes would change. Much less could they have imagined the stunning swiftness with which such events would unfold. In late summer, as Wall Streeters scurried for the Hamptons, the partners were among America's most prosperous, most successful, and most highly esteemed investors. Their fund had $3.6 billion in capital, of which two fifths was personally theirs. It would take only five weeks for them to lose it all.