A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers


Lawrence G. McDonald - 2009
     What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors. We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it. The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.

After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead


Alan S. Blinder - 2013
    financial system, which had grown far too complex for its own good-and too unregulated for the public good-experienced a perfect storm beginning in 2007. When America's financial structure crumbled, the damage proved to be not only deep, but wide. It took the crisis for the world to discover, to its horror, just how truly interconnected-and fragile-the global financial system is. The second part of the story explains how American and international government intervention kept us from a total meltdown. Many of the U.S. government's actions, particularly the Fed's, were previously unimaginable. And to an amazing-and certainly misunderstood-extent, they worked. The worst did not happen. Blinder offers clear-eyed answers to the questions still before us, even if some of the choices ahead are as divisive as they are unavoidable. After the Music Stopped is an essential history that we cannot afford to forget, because one thing history teaches is that it will happen here again.

Forex Made Simple: A Step-By-Step Day Trading Strategy for Making $100 to $200 per Day


Alpha Balde - 2012
    Absolutely:•No Trendlines•No Support or Resistance analysis•No ADX•No RSI•No Fibonacci Retracements of Extensions of any kind•No Elliot wave•No Candlestick patterns ( triangles, rectangles, pendants, Flags,…..)•No Bollinger Bands•No StochasticWelcome to the world of Pure Price action at its finest.PRICE ACTION the like of which you have never seen before. Identify current Trend at a Glance; quickly assess whether you are at the beginning of the move or whether you are late.All you need is a FREE Metatrader 4 platform and this Book.

Accounts Demystified: The Astonishingly Simple Guide to Accounting


Anthony Rice - 2003
    Written in a way that even the financial novice can easily absorb, this is a new edition of the bestselling guide to understanding and using business accounts and accounting principles.

Suze Orman's Will Trust Kit: The Ultimate Protection Portfolio


Suze Orman - 2002
    It’s as easy as 1-2-3—simply personalize, print, and protect.      Suze Orman and her own estate trust attorney have created the most state-of-the-art documents found anywhere. There are more than $2,500 worth of estate documents in this kit. Why pay thousands of dollars when you can get the same documents in this kit for $19.95!      This kit includes:•     More than 50 state-of-the-art documents•     Free automatic on-line updates•     Verbal and written instructions taking you step by step through the four must-have documents•     Password protection securing multiple users’ information•     A tutorial that shows you everything you need to know•     10 electronic books                                         PC and Macintosh Compatible . . . and good in all 50 states!

Real Estate Note Investing: Using Mortgage Notes to Passively and Massively Increase Your Income


Dave Van Horn - 2018
    Whether it's through mortgages, student loans, or credit card debt, nearly all of us (especially real estate investors!) are in the note business. The trouble is, most people are on the other side of it: writing checks to note owners rather than cashing checks as note owners. Understanding how to utilize basic note and financing concepts explained in this book will help real estate investors like you to:Borrow smarter by making debt your friend. Raise money for your investments easier by understanding and appealing to private investors. Squeeze more profits out of the deals you're already doing by utilizing creative offers and multiple financing strategies. Scale your investing through a passive investment vehicle that is backed by hard real estate without the tenants, termites, or toilets. Use note investing to pay for expenses like student loans and life insurance, or simply to provide additional cash flow for you into retirement. Become the bank and begin to use every form of leverage you have available! Not another cookie-cutter "how to" book, Dave instead takes readers on a journey with him as he looks back over lessons learned across three decades of real estate investing, and the path that led him to his success today in the note industry. He teaches by example, illustrates with real-life stories, and gives a 30,000 ft. view of the note space, introducing readers to a new way of investing.So whether you're a wholesaler, rehabber, landlord, or even turnkey investor, reading this book will help you turn your focus to the "other side" of real estate. For both new and experienced investors alike, no matter where you are in the real estate business, the strategies in this book can help you build sustainable wealth today and for years to come.

The 3% Signal: The Investing Technique That Will Change Your Life


Jason Kelly - 2015
    But for most of us, investing can be stressful and confusing, especially when supposedly expert predictions fail. Enter The 3% Signal. Simple and effective, Kelly’s plan can be applied to any type of account, including 401(k)s—and requires only fifteen minutes of strategizing per quarter. No stress. No noise. No confusion. By targeting three percent growth and adjusting holdings to meet that goal, even novice investors can level the financial playing field and ensure a secure retirement free from the stress of noisy advice that doesn't work. The plan's simple technique cuts through the folly of human emotion by reacting intelligently to price changes and automatically buying low and selling high. Relayed in the same easy-to-understand language that has made The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing such a staple in the investing community, The 3% Signal is sure to become your most trusted guide to investing success.

Den of Thieves


James B. Stewart - 1991
    Stewart shows for the first time how four of the eighties’ biggest names on Wall Street—Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine —created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions, until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America’s most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice. Based on secret grand jury transcripts, interviews, and actual trading records, and containing explosive new revelations about Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky written especially for this paperback edition, Den of Thieves weaves all the facts into an unforgettable narrative—a portrait of human nature, big business, and crime of unparalleled proportions.

The Laundrymen: Inside the World's Third Largest Business


Jeffrey Robinson - 1994
    fact outdoes fiction" The Times of London"An eye-opening expose." Daily Mail"Money laundering is a runaway global industry." Time Magazine

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities


John Cassidy - 2009
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes: Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation


Scott Nations - 2017
    Only billionaire J.P. Morgan was able to save the stock market.Black Tuesday (1929): As the newly created Federal Reserve System repeatedly adjusted interest rates in all the wrong ways, investment trusts, the darlings of that decade, became the catalyst that caused the bubble to burst, and the Dow fell dramatically, leading swiftly to the Great Depression.Black Monday (1987): When "portfolio insurance," a new tool meant to protect investments, instead led to increased losses, and corporate raiders drove stock prices above their real values, the Dow dropped an astonishing 22.6 percent in one day.The Great Recession (2008): As homeowners began defaulting on mortgages, investment portfolios that contained them collapsed, bringing the nation's largest banks, much of the economy, and the stock market down with them.The Flash Crash (2010): When one investment manager, using a runaway computer algorithm that was dangerously unstable and poorly understood, reacted to the economic turmoil in Greece, the stock market took an unprecedentedly sudden plunge, with the Dow shedding 998.5 points (roughly a trillion dollars in valuation) in just minutes.The stories behind the great crashes are filled with drama, human foibles, and heroic rescues. Taken together they tell the larger story of a nation reaching enormous heights of financial power while experiencing precipitous dips that alter and reset a market where millions of Americans invest their savings, and on which they depend for their futures. Scott Nations vividly shows how each of these major crashes played a role in America's political and cultural fabric, each providing painful lessons that have strengthened us and helped us to build the nation we know today.A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these major financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one.

Opportunity Knocks: The Story of How Hope and Opportunity Can Change Everything


Tim Scott - 2020
    As the son of a single mother from North Charleston, South Carolina, he struggled to get through school and had his dreams of a college football career shattered by a car wreck. But thanks to his mother and a few mentors along the way, he learned that "failure isn't failure unless you quit." He also learned that it's hard work and perseverance, not a government handout, that will get you ahead in life.Today, Senator Scott is the only black Republican in the Senate, and he believes that investment and commerce are the best ways to rebuild our most impoverished communities. This is the idea behind his signature piece of legislation, the "opportunity zones" program, which President Trump has strongly endorsed. The program provides tax incentives for businesses that invest in low-income urban areas, seeking to replace things like welfare and government assistance. In Opportunity Knocks, Senator Scott will tell his life story with a focus on adversity and opportunity. He will teach readers about the principles of hard work and hope while addressing the dangers of veering too far toward socialist policies. The book will also not shy away from discussions of racism and racial inequality in the United States, and will recount some of Senator Scott's own brushes with racism as well as the many discussions he's had with people who want to help, including President Trump.

Lifeonaire


Steve Cook - 2014
    The typical American trades the vast majority of their time and energy for the hope that, someday, they will be free. Meanwhile, their intense pursuit of financial success is the very thing robbing them of freedom. So, Where Do We Find Freedom? What Should We Pursue/ In Lifeonaire, Steve Cook and Shaun McCloskey challenge you to consider what it is that you really desire. Through this story, they show how Americans often blindly pursue financial wealth thinking that it will reward them with what they want. But, what we really want is life. Our heart's desire is to become more than just a "success" by the world's standards- more than a millionaire. What we really want is to become a Lifeonaire.

The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--And Spawned a Global Crisis


Michael W. Hudson
    Anything that benefited production - that benefited me and benefited my wallet - I'd do it.""The sales force at Ameriquest Mortgage took this philosophy to heart. They watched the Hollywood white-collar-crime flick "Boiler Room" as a training tape, studying how to pitch overpriced deals to unsuspecting home owners. They learned how to forge signatures on mortgage paperwork and create fake documents in "cut-and-paste" operations they dubbed "The Lab" or "The Art Department."In this stunning narrative, award-winning reporter Michael W. Hudson reveals the story of the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage business by chronicling the rise and fall of two corporate empires: Ameriquest and Lehman Brothers. As the biggest subprime lender and Wall Street's biggest patron of subprime, Ameriquest and Lehman did more than any other institutions to create the feeding frenzy that emboldened mortgage pros to flood the nation with high-risk, high-profit home loans.It's a tale populated by a remarkable cast of the characters: a shadowy billionaire who created the subprime industry out of the ashes of the 1980s S&L scandal; Wall Street executives with an insatiable desire for product; struggling home owners ensnared in the most ingenious of traps; lawyers and investigators who tried to expose the fraud; politicians and bureaucrats who turned a blind eye; and, most of all, the drug-snorting, high-living salesman who tell all about the money they made, the lies they told, the deals they closed.Provocative and gripping, "The Monster" is a searing expose of the bottom-feeding fraud and top-down greed that fueled the financial collapse."

Jesse Livermore - Boy Plunger: The Man Who Sold America Short in 1929


Tom Rubython - 2014
    Despite having amassed a fortune of $100 million by1929, Livermore was back where he started at 16. He did not seem to learn from his mistakes."--Victor Niederhoffer "That was the call of a lifetime, everyone was blind and deep into the crisis and Jesse Livermore made $100 million going short when almost everyone else was bullish and then almost everyone else lost their shirts."--John Paulson "His stories of making millions, were the financial equivalent of "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" to a young man at the advent of his financial career."--Paul Tudor Jones "It was an amazing day on 24th October 1929 when Jesse came home and his wife thought they were ruined and instead he had the second best trading day of anyone in history."--John Templeton Who was Jesse Livermore? Jesse Livermore, was the most successful stock and commodities trader that ever operated on the stock markets. He was both the man who made the most money in a single day and the man who lost the most money in a single day. In fact he made and lost three great fortunes between 1900 and 1940. Singlehandedly he caused the two great Wall Street crashes of 1907 and 1929, making millions from both. When he speculated he speculated big and was known on Wall Street as the Boy Plunger. For a brief period in the early 1930s he was one of the world's richest men with a personal fortune believed to be worth over $150 million, $100 million of that earned in just a few days from the Wall Street crash of 1929. In the end it was too extreme a change of fortunes for any man to cope with and Livermore shot himself in a New York hotel lobby in 1940 aged just 63. His legacy continued and his son, Jesse jr later also committed suicide as did his grandson, Jesse III. In the summer of 1929 most people believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. Wall Street was enjoying a eight-year winning run that had seen the Dow Jones increase 1,000 per cent from the start of the decade - an unprecedented rise. The Dow peaked at 381 on 3rd September and later that day the most respected economist of the day, Irving Fisher, declared that the rise was "permanent." One man vigorously disagreed and sold $300 million worth of shares short. Two weeks later the market began falling and rising again on successive days for no apparent reason. This situation endured for a month until what became famously known as the three 'black' days: On Black Thursday 24th October the Dow fell 11% at the opening bell, prompting absolute chaos. The fall was stalled when leading financiers of the day clubbed together to buy huge quantities of shares. But it was short-lived succor and over that weekend blanket negative newspaper commentary caused the second of the 'black' days on Black Monday 26th October when the market dropped another 13%. The third 'black' day, Black Tuesday 29th October saw the market drop a further 12%. When the dust had settled, between the 24th and 29th October, Wall Street had lost $30 billion. Only much later did it became known that the man who had sold short $300 million worth of shares was Jesse Livermore. Livermore had made $100 million and overnight became one of the richest men in the world. It remains, adjusted for inflation, the most money ever made by any individual in a period of seven days. This is the story of that man.