Wall Street Meat: Jack Grubman, Frank Quattrone, Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget and me
Author: Andy Kessler
List Price: $25.95
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ISBN: 0972783210
Publisher: Escape Velocity Press (17 March, 2003)
Sales Rank: 9,249
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Funny, Fun and Shocking
Andy Kessler is a worthy follow-up act to Michael Lewis, and his Wall Street Meat is as fun and enjoyable as Lewis's Liar's Poker. I read this book cover to cover and was chuckling with delight all the way through.It really brings us upclose and personal with the biggest rogues on Wall Street. The portraits of Jack Grubman and Mary Meeker are especially compelling. I highly recommend this book - easy to read, lucid and with a sense of bemusement only a true new yorker can have...shame we have to wait for his next book
Rating: 5 out of 5
LIARS' POKER meets the Tech Bubble
This book is to the nineties what Michael Lewis's Liars' Poker was to the eighties-a whirling, candid look at Wall Street. I agree with Lewis's blurb: I gulped this book, too. He and Kessler both have a great comic sense. Both came to the financial world in a roundabout way. (Lewis was an art history major who became a bond salesman; Kessler was a Bell labs researcher who became a research analyst.) But there are differences, too, and they go beyond the simple fact that Lewis wrote about the character of Salomon Brothers and the mortgage-backed security business, whereas Kessler's story more broadly concerns the technology bubble of the late nineties, and Wall Street's part in it. Kessler is more sharp-edged and critical, yet idealistic, too, ending with a few pages of ideas on what caused the tech bubble and what might be done differently to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Kessler writes from the vantage point of more than fifteen years in the securities business, and you sense he really cares about many of the people he works with. (Even if he frequently shows it by verbally skewering them.) Lewis's time on Wall Street was much shorter, and his tone is more one of bemused detachment. Kessler is very anecdotal, even more than Lewis, one- and two-pagers, but the chronology is solid and the whole thing works perfectly. The two books are close cousins, lots of hilarious stories and witty detail, and a sprinkling of memorable supporting characters, including a vivid yet balanced portrayal of fallen superstar Jack Grubman, through the years, by Kessler.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Funny and insightful stories from inside the late Bubble
This is a funny and insightful book. It may seem like a bunch of breezy anecdotes told cleverly about some big name Wall Street names, and it has plenty of those, but it is much more than that. This is a book that should be read by everyone interested in Wall Street, who has money invested there, or is thinking about putting money there, and any MBA interested in finance. Mr. Kessler worked on Wall Street for many years as an analyst for Paine Webber and then Morgan Stanley. Later, he left to work as a portfolio manager at Velocity Capital Management, which means he was and is still working with the same folks, but now as an investor.His stories, escapades, and perspectives will lift the veil for those still innocent enough to believe that salesmen and account managers for the big trading houses have their clients' best interest at heart. I know we learned in b-school about the Random Walk, and arbitrage theory. All of that and the other stuff we learned is important to know. However, more valuable are the real world insights he provides about the structural changes and unintended consequences of the Small Order Execution System and its effect on liquidity and price volatility, Sarbanes-Oxley and the closing off of information to investors, ECNs and the erosion of trading income and the change to emphasis on fees and deals to provide income, momentum investing (momos), and more.
I am also very glad that he does not let individual investors off the hook for their own foolishness with their retirement and investment income. Remember, the greater fool theory cannot work without new people volunteering for the job. In the afterword the author also briefly demonstrates why all of the popular theories for the bubble and its popping are all true and none true. All contributed, but none we alone sufficient. Like most disasters, the likely cause is a confluence of little events combined into something no one much caused or could stop.
There is an obvious comparison to Michael Lewis's wonderful "Liar's Poker" and I would recommend this book just as highly. Mr. Kessler's career spanned a long enough time to chronicle the change from his being afraid to recommend a stock that could drop in price to Henry Blodget being afraid to downgrade a stock that could still go up in price. An amazing journey indeed and we are the better for his having chronicled it for us in such an entertaining way.
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