Friday, February 8, 2008

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.

5 comments:

EquineTrader said...

Hey,

There were times last yeaqr that i didn't update my blog, but now i update it everyday. The days that have nothing written are the days I didn't trade. For instance I got caught in January holding MA which dropped me below the daytrading threshold etc... hence I couldn't trade :( It was such a good market for scalping too... it really cost me dearly.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Gotcha, but you trade everyday now? Is that your full time job?

As long as you trade a majority of the days and update your blog regularly so people can understand how you trade, then you're welcome to join.

Shoot me an email and I'll give you the specifics.

-DT

ainkurn said...

I think having a female in the VO wold be awesome. She could show-up all the hard legs here, and bank major coin.

John Forman said...

Great book. I read it back when it first came out as I was a first-hand witness to the events of the period and I love Liar's Poker, which features one of LTCM's lead player, John Merriweather. I'm sure you found it very interesting in light of the algo/quant fund problems that came about last summer.

Dinosaur Trader said...

john,

Absolutely, given what happened this summer and the continuing "credit crisis" it was very interesting reading.

I'll check into Liar's Poker, thanks.

-DT