• The Buy Side

  • A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess
  • By: Turney Duff
  • Narrated by: Turney Duff
  • Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,716 ratings)

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The Buy Side  By  cover art

The Buy Side

By: Turney Duff
Narrated by: Turney Duff
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Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Galleon Group trader portrays an after-hours Wall Street culture where drugs and sex are rampant and billions in trading commissions flow to those who dangle the most enticements.

A remarkable writing debut, filled with indelible moments, The Buy Side shows as no book ever has the rewards—and dizzying temptations—of making a living on the Street. Growing up in the 1980’s Turney Duff was your average kid from Kennebunk, Maine, eager to expand his horizons. After trying – and failing – to land a job as a journalist, he secured a trainee position at Morgan Stanley and got his first feel for the pecking order that exists in the trading pits.

Those on the “buy side,” the traders who make large bets on whether a stock will rise or fall, are the “alphas” and those on the “sell side,” the brokers who handle their business, are eager to please. How eager to please was brought home stunningly to Turney in 1999 when he arrived at the Galleon Group, a colossal hedge-fund management firm run by secretive founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Finally in a position to trade on his own, Turney was encouraged to socialize with the sell side and siphon from his new broker friends as much information as possible. Soon he was not just vacuuming up valuable tips but also being lured into a variety of hedonistic pursuits.

Naïve enough to believe he could keep up the lifestyle without paying a price, he managed to keep an eye on his buy-and-sell charts and, meanwhile, pondered the strange goings on at Galleon, where tens of millions were being made each week in sometimes mysterious ways.

At his next positions, at Argus Partners and J.L. Berkowitz, Turney climbed to even higher heights – and, as it turned out, plummeted to even lower depths – as, by day, he solidified his reputation one of the Street’s most powerful healthcare traders, and by night, he blazed a path through the city’s nightclubs, showing off his social genius and voraciously inhaling any drug that would fill the void he felt inside. A mesmerizingly immersive journey through Wall Street’s first millennial decade, and a poignant self portrait by a young man who surely would have destroyed himself were it not for his decision to walk away from a seven-figure annual income, The Buy Side is one of the best coming-of-age-on-the-Street books ever written.

©2013 Turney Duff (P)2013 Random House

Critic reviews

“This is why I keep my money safe and sound under the mattress. You could get high just reading this book. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Wall Street traders." (James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls)

“Bracing…calls to mind books like Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, and especially Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis…As spectacle [the book] easily trumps both…Mr. Duff proves a fine wordsmith: his prose is smooth, lean and rhythmic…An entertaining and cautionary tale, well worth your time.” (Bryan Burrough, The New York Times)

“Turney Duff is a natural storyteller, and his tale of how a naive kid from Maine traded in L.L. Bean for Armani and got sucked into the seamy side of Wall Street is almost impossible to put down. The book is by turns hilarious, harrowing, maddening, and illuminating. After this debut, the smart money will be on Duff.” (Bethany McLean, New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here)

What listeners say about The Buy Side

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating, honest tale of life on the "Street"

I took a risk on buying this book as I am completely illiterate in all things Wall Street. It paid off quite nicely because the author takes us through his journey on Wall Street from his own beginning as an painfully clueless intern. He explains the function of a Wall Street trader in a way that almost anyone can understand and I found it fascinating. He takes the reader with him as he moves up the ladder, becoming one of the biggest names on the Buy Side. While doing this, Duff seamlessly delves into the accompanying lifestyle of the trader-where more money can be made in one day than many people make in a decade. The excess is almost inevitable but it's the drugs that are Duff's final undoing. And eventually, his redoing. Ultimately, he sees the emptiness in all of it but not until he goes through his own version of hell. The beauty of this book is that you need not be a finance major to enjoy it, because the book is not about finance, or stocks, or trading at all. It's about our ever-increasing need to find something outside of ourselves to make us happy, and never finding it.

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24 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

If I could return this because the author is a tool I would

I feel like a worse person for having listened to this book. I kept listening thinking I would find some redeeming quality about the author but that didn’t happen. I got the point loud and clear about his lifestyle and the fact he had an addiction. What I didn’t get was any empathy towards him and disliked him more and more as the book went on.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Excess Wall Street excess

Tourney's experiences climbing the Wall Street pecking order kept me wanting more. My favorite genre of book is Wall Street excess. This fit the bill.

And Tourney seemed to cross paths with all the who's who of Wall Street. Raj, Cramer...

But as the story entered the final third the attention given to his personal struggles (cocaine) was excessive. No doubt the author's drug problem were key to his downfall but in this kind of book I am looking for more Wall Street specific excess and less info about self driven coke and masturbation marathons.

Overall a good story. I'd buy again but would not endure after (spoiler alert)

He goes to rehab

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Weekend listen

Great story! I probably got through it in one weekend. Duff is an excellent story teller. I could not stop listening.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great read.

Where does The Buy Side rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

A little slow out of the gates, but content gets real juicy as the book progresses. A very open tale of his life full from the good to the bad. It's a good read.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book

Would you listen to The Buy Side again? Why?

Definitely - it's just a great story and very well written.

What other book might you compare The Buy Side to and why?

Straight to Hell.

Which character – as performed by Turney Duff – was your favorite?

Turney Duff and his buddy Turbo.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The author relapsing and almost ending up homeless was tough. I was rooting for him to straighten up his life and his relapse surprised me.

Any additional comments?

Funny, moving, and informative book. Very well written and author-performed books are always the best. This is no exception - loved every minute.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Enthralling story

Would you listen to The Buy Side again? Why?

I would listen to this book again.

What did you like best about this story?

Duff paints a picture for the listener, I truly believe him even when he isn't quite sure what happened.

Which character – as performed by Turney Duff – was your favorite?

Raj.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

A blow by blow account of the street's spectacular highs, and lows.

Any additional comments?

Don't quit during the opening preface. I had a strong urge to stop listening right off the bat however, after Duff 'warmed up' The Buy Side seemed to flow more naturally.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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A enlightening story.

Great firsthand account off the highs and lows of being a wall street trader.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Hooked

I felt like an addict listening to your book. It was so captivating and suspenseful; I ignored everyone and everything just to get to the next chapter. This was my 1st, of hopefully many books on audio.

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  • Ed
  • 05-01-15

Great book.

Awesome. Great writing. Turney did a fantastic job. Insiders account of the Wall Street inner workings. Very educational, an eye opener.

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