When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

I read this book with the aim of increasing my knowledge about the stock market and various terminologies etc. I did'nt want to read some dull boring book. My way of getting the hang of things when I am *very* new in a field is to listen (or read) on topics related to that field. Knowingly or unknowingly, you start to pick up terms that you had never heard of.

This Book was a very interesting reading all by itself. Many people are drawn towards the stock markets (or success in general) without understanding that success now can be followed by failure. That is the entire essence about being careful and playing safe. Risk management in short.

This book teaches how to be not blinded by present success blah blah blah. its a very interesting book. Informative and full of suspense. It surely teaches somethings. Besides risk management it teaches the value of experience and the concept of rising back from your fall. Many people just accept one defeat as their entire life. There is a lot that can be learnt from this book. Very interesting.

This is a worthwhile book, and the only one I know of on LTCM, but there were two aspects I thought could have been much better. First, the author reads his own book, which is typically a bad idea and it is in this case as well. Second, the book is overly simplistic and a bit preachy. The author's thesis, that the LTCM managers underestimated the risk from fat tails, is implausible given their sophistication (I'm sure the former LTCM managers would think this explanation is simply ludicrous). I think that the author failed to distill and synthesize the numerous, complex, contributing factors that were actually behind the failure in an effort to have a nice neat bumper sticker rational for its cause.

while this is an interesting read, it could have been a shorter book without compromising the message. The first part was ok, the middle dragged on too much and the ending was very strong. Perhaps the problem was too much detail.
At any rate, the book is very well documented and is able to put you in the situation quite easily.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see first hand how being smart is not always a garantee to success, but rather business sense

Listening to this book provides a great insight into how invincible a small group of people thought they were. Just when you think you have mastered the universe, it begins to unravel right in front of your eyes. Beyond that, you are a witness to how the US government will step in to "protect" the markets when things begin to melt down.

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.

I could not stop listening to this book. It was an amazing story. I'm not sure that someone who is not in the financial business would fully appreciate this book, but it is a must read (listen) for anyone who works on Wall Street. One can see the reason that, in 1998, we were "starring into the abyss".

I could not listen for more than 30 minutes. The book may be good but I could not stand the narration. I suggest you listen to a sample before purchasing. Listen for a while to get a good sense of the narrator's style.

I would only recommend this too people who are interested in the details of what happens on Wall Street. The reading of this book was well done, and the story was fine, but it was too narrowly focused for me to enjoy as much as I have other books about Wall Street.

Learning about arbitrage, leverage, and credit during market turmoil.

When LTCM had made obscene returns and started investing in areas they had no business touching.

No, I had to make myself finish it.

It's very hard to write a review on financial books because it is very technical, factual, and to the point. In many ways, it is a dull read, as if you are in school, cracking open an algebra book, trying to solve an equation.

I like these kinds of reads because I enjoy listening what went on in Wall Street and beyond. There are times where you need to take a break from fiction and get something that makes sense with numbers.

This title meets my number fetish and put this book on top of my list for economy status at the time.

The author's voice is a bit desirable because instead of a steady voice, you feel like you are going on a roller coaster ride, where the pitch of the reader's voice goes up and down, as if you are driving uphill and then all of a sudden, you are speeding down the hill and then up again.

Maybe the publisher couldn't afford a professional narrator.

They should re-record this title with an new reader, but if you are thinking about buying this book, you are not interested in the storytelling.

What a mess!

John William Meriwether was my favorite character because his portrayl within the book as the most sensitive and rife with Greek tragedy. (For those options enthusiasts reading this, the pun was absolutely intended!)

The reading was crisp on the ear and very easy to listen to.

Um, it's about bankers. I cheered when they went down in flames!

Superb story telling. If you are at all interested in the saga of Long-Term Capital Management, download this and give it a listen. I loved it!