Fiasco : The Inside Story of a Wall Stre

Frank Patron revelation about how Morgan Stanley Derivatives group do business is just mind blowing. Its a true story where Frank Patron shares his journey within Morgan Stanley from getting in to the couple of years he spent with the Derivatives Public Group, How big business and individual who wanted to make quick money or show their balance sheets clear lost money and how they were sold Derivatives which were complex in nature and impossible to understand, The Money made by Morgan Stanley in selling these complex products the incentives and bonuses which Agents and Salesman from Latin America to Tokyo how these big Investment Firms can just blow your money off.It was informative as well as enjoyable to read this story with some solid learnings as captured belowDo not invest in Derivatives or try to Understand it as you won't understand its all FraudInvestment Bankers are there to make money for themselves not for youIts all Nexus from Corporate to Politician to Financial system there is little or no chance for someone to fight against these behemoth

book is v good. print is absolutely shocking bad

Good Book.

It is a book containing quotes,poetries and lot to read....It's a book holding a record.....Thank you Where India Writes and compiler of this book for opportunity.

If you already have a finance background then this book might attract you but don't expect it to give you anything meaningful but only about some stories from when the author was in Sales and Trading. Overall I felt it was a little plain.

I wont be talking abiut this book assuming person interested would have done that research but paper quality is pathetic. It feels and look like a pirated version of actual book. Highly Disappointed.

The Quality of the paperback is very bad, it looks like a pirated copy & a street side version. I didn’t expect such a bad quality book which was very unlike the other penguin books.

Extremely interesting story that exposes and informs the "average-joe" of the world of derivatives.

I am a big fan of business books and I recommend this memoir of life in the Wall Street derivatives business in the late 1990's.I enjoyed Fiasco both as a personal story and as an interesting walk through of how some of the more interesting and profitable Wall Street deals of the past decade have been done. I think  Liar's Poker , The Smartest Guys in the Room , When Genius Failed  and  Barbarians at the Gate  are the best of this genre, and this one sits comfortably in their company. The basic summary is that the author gets a job at Morgan Stanley Derivative Products Group on the cutting edge of the derivatives trend sweeping wall Street at the time and he learns all about the business, including its characters, opportunities and ethical challenges. The subject is particularly interesting now that the derivative chickens have come home to roost.The only reason I didn't give it five stars is that compared to the characters discussed in the books above (Guttfreund, Michael Steinhardt, Kravis, Milken, et al.), Partnoy didn't have quite the same material to work with. Nevertheless, Fiasco was fun, informative and timely. Liar's PokerThe Smartest Guys in the RoomWhen Genius FailedBarbarians at the Gate

This book is absolutely captivating. Portnoy will make you laugh, get angry, and marvel at the many machinations of Wall Street finance. If his descriptions of the characters and his own feelings about what he participated in weren't so entertaining on their own, the rest of the story might be a bit drab and difficult to follow for those bored with numbers and financial terminology. However, that is not the case. How this has not been made into a movie yet, I don't know!

Where there is large volume of innovation, there is bound to be some fraud. Fraudulent intent may even precede or supersede legitimate intent. It is especially visible in financial product innovation, where incentives are twisted, risks are hidden/unknown, and short-termism is rampant.In this instance, book illustrates the dramatic growth in derivative products market. As a chicken fried equities guy, I had no clue just how exotic these instruments had become by mid-90's. FIASCO goes through painstaking detail explaining the structure and at times dubious purpose of those instruments (disguising something volatile and high-risk as a stable product, for example)... all along shedding some light on personalities involved in creating and selling those products.Makes me wonder how things have changed over the last 20 years. After all, we did have a CMO blowup only 8 years ago. I wonder what's next... Buyers and investors beware! Don't get your faces ripped off.

Call it what you want. "entertaining dirt disher" is one opinion.Read this book and decide for yourself if it is bogus or fictional.If you decide not, we have a huge problem staring down the throat of well known billion dollar losses. And ask: how could that happen?How could it be that some guy could show the corelation between blow-ups and derivative trades.Facinating read, totally in-your-face if you are in that business.Even if you think this is all bullpucky, it is a great read by a very smart author.