When Genius Failed
The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
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Narrated by:
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Roger Lowenstein
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By:
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Roger Lowenstein
About this listen
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best—and the brainiest—bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy Midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team—convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized—plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast—which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners—investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.
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The financial establishment---banks and investment bankers, such as Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley---were the cowboys, recklessly assuming risks, leveraging up to astronomical levels, and driving the economy to the brink of disaster.
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Great Story Ruined by Monotone Reading
- By Marc on 04-23-13
By: John E. Morris, and others
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Tap Dancing to Work
- Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966–2012: A Fortune Magazine Book
- By: Carol J. Loomis
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce, Barry Press
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge-fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor - nor that she and Buffett would become close personal friends. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major article that supplies context and her own informed point of view.
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A collection of finance articles - not a biography
- By Gerardo A Dada on 08-23-13
By: Carol J. Loomis
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Hedgehogging
- By: Barton Biggs
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
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Rare is the opportunity to chat with a legendary figure and hear the unvarnished truth about what really goes on behind the scenes. Step inside the world of Wall Street with Barton Biggs as he discusses investing in general, hedge funds in particular, and how he has learned to find and profit from the best moneymaking opportunities in an eat-what-you-kill, cutthroat investment world.
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HedgeHotDogging
- By Bob on 10-01-06
By: Barton Biggs
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The Bank That Lived a Little
- Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market
- By: Philip Augar
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
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Based on unparalleled access to those involved, and told with compelling pace and drama, The Bank That Lived a Little is the story of one of the most familiar names on the British high street since Big Bang in 1986. Philip Augar describes in detail three decades of boardroom intrigue driven by ruthless ambition, grandiose dreams and a desire for wealth. It is a tale of a struggle for long-term supremacy between rival strategies and their adherents.
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Global superstar bankers under light-touch gov
- By Philo on 12-21-18
By: Philip Augar
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The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
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Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
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Too Good to Be True
- The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff
- By: Erin Arvedlund
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Erin Arvedlund, the financial reporter who questioned the amazing returns of Bernie Madoff's hedge funds way back in 2001, traces the life of the infamous swindler and addresses the tough questions surrounding the collapse of his Ponzi scheme.
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Doesn't add much more that a lot of details.
- By Robert on 11-07-10
By: Erin Arvedlund
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Borrowed Time
- Two Centuries of Booms, Busts, and Bailouts at Citi
- By: James Freeman, Vern McKinley
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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To save the economy and keep Citi afloat in 2008, the government provided huge infusions of cash through multiple bailouts that frustrated and angered the American public. But, as Wall Street Journal writer James Freeman and financial expert Vern McKinley reveal, the 2008 crisis was just one of many disasters Citi has experienced since its founding more than 200 years ago. In Borrowed Time they reveal Citi’s disturbing history of instability and government support. It’s a story that neither Citi nor Washington wants told.
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Biased
- By CF on 08-09-19
By: James Freeman, and others
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The House of Dimon
- How JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon Rose to the Top of the Financial World
- By: Patricia Crisafulli
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Jamie Dimon is Wall Street's biggest player. Following the 11h-hour rescue of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan, his profile has reached stratospheric levels. And while the deals and decisions he's made have usually turned out to be the right ones, his journey to the top of the financial world has been anything but easy. Now, in The House of Dimon, business writer Patricia Crisafulli goes behind the scenes to recount the amazing events that have shaped Dimon's career.
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Intriguing
- By Jean on 08-28-16
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The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
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Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
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Why Wall Street Matters
- By: William D. Cohan
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive best-selling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent 17 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well.
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An Inch Deep and A Mile Wide
- By Doug Sheridan on 04-26-17
By: William D. Cohan
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The Little Book of Big Profits from Small Stocks + Website
- Why You'll Never Buy a Stock Over $10 Again (Little Books. Big Profits)
- By: Hilary Kramer
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The key to building wealth the low-priced stock wayLow-priced gems, or what author Hilary Kramer calls "breakout stocks" come in all kinds of shapes and sizes but they all have three things in common: (1) they are mostly under $10; (2) they are undervalued; and (3) they have specific catalysts in the near future that put them on the threshold of breaking out to much higher prices. In The Little Book of Big Profits from Small Stocks, small stock expert Hilary Kramer looks for stocks with fifty to two hundred percent upside potential!
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Insightful, specific and resourceful!!!
- By Nico on 05-23-12
By: Hilary Kramer
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Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: Maury Klein
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe. The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls.
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Plenty of fine detail, especially of the 1920s
- By Philo on 04-18-13
By: Maury Klein
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Heads I Win, Tails I Win
- Why Smart Investors Fail and How to Tilt the Odds in Your Favor
- By: Spencer Jakab
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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According to Wall Street Journal investing columnist Spencer Jakab, most of us have no idea how much money we're leaving on the table - or that the average saver doesn't come anywhere close to earning the "average" returns touted in those glossy brochures. We're handicapped not only by psychological biases and a fear of missing out but by an industry with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets and an eye on its own bottom line, not yours.
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Got my head screwed on straight
- By Rob Barry on 12-20-18
By: Spencer Jakab
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perhaps the best book on the Quants
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Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor - Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros - can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth 23 billion dollars.
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Not worth it
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Lords of Finance
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
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What listeners say about When Genius Failed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- D. Littman
- 02-28-05
Excellent finance/economics piece
This is an excellent journalistic economics/finance piece that anyone with an interest in finance or economics would find to be a "must-read," and even those ordinarily intimidated by such subjects would find to be a rivetting human story. It is also a little-known financial failure ... even for me, deeply ensconced in the subject of banking, I was distracted at the very same time by President Clinton's dominance of the airwaves with the Lewinsky scandal. LTCM did receive its share of business page headlines, but was overwhelmed by this other event in the popular mind. The book moves along & is very well read too.
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Story
- Henrik B. Rasmussen
- 01-13-19
Fascinating look behind the curtain
I couldn't stop listening. As an individual trader, it is worth noting that financial genius can be just as wrong as I often am
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- Noah Smith
- 03-10-14
A real-life Icarus story.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
There are a few histories of Wall Street that really stand out. The others are mostly written by Michael Lewis. So that puts this book in rarified company.
What did you like best about this story?
The humanization of the two protagonists, John Meriwether and Larry Hillebrand.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The final defeat of Hillebrand, when he's forced to finally open his books for the world to see, was moving. He's not a likable character, but you really feel sympathy for him in that moment.
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- theunis
- 02-04-17
A Crucial Tool in the Arsenal against Folly
When Genius Failed is an incredibly well researched piece, deserving of being a "must read".
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- Lori
- 10-07-13
The Ten Year Heads Up
What to make of the fact that the dress rehearsal for the sub-prime bailout occurred in September 1998? What did we know then that we did not learn from? How can we prevent this from recurring or are we simply doomed to continue this? So many questions ...
Roger Lowenstein narrates his own book. I'm from the midwest and so, to me, he sounds distinctly northeastern. It takes a bit of getting used to, but after a couple of chapters, I was fine.
The story was a bit overwrought, especially in the middle. But I was very engaged in the early beginnings of the creation of something so spectacularly successful as Long Term Capital Management, the incredibly quick demise, and whether we learned anything from the whole thing.
Lowenstein does a fine job describing some fairly complex concepts such as bond arbitrage, volatility, and leverage. It helped me grasp many of the underpinnings. The characters were incredibly interesting to me - each genius and mad in their own individual way. They seemed to simultaneously bring out the best and the worst in each other.
This book is especially interesting in light of the subprime and global financial crises of 2008-2010. I can't help feeling as though we failed to heed a lesson.
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- Donald M. Scott
- 12-08-16
An excellent tale, well written and well read.
Any additional comments?
The author does an excellent job of bringing the characters and the hedge fund business to life. When I finished it I started from the beginning again.
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- Adventure Boy
- 01-10-17
Business Nonfiction at Its Best
This is a short, clear, and very entertaining history of the rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management, which was dramatic. This is among the best business books I have read, up there with Liar's Poker.
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- Logan
- 05-08-17
Great Book, Great Delivery
Not only is this a good book, but the narration os very well done as well.
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- Denny
- 02-18-21
Great story about the failure of LTCM
Wow how many bad decisions. How much wealth built. The book was thorough and kept me engaged. It is a great story of a lot of growth and a big failure. This was entirely their own fault lots of nuggets here about business and investing.
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- GB
- 12-24-21
Could do with better audio
The recording could be a little crisper with better audio quality. Otherwise the book was good. The reporting was very thorough.
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