First published 2014
John Meriweather sits at the top of Wall Street's most exclusive investment club. The former Salomon Brothers bond dealer has assembled an unprecedented team: two Nobel Prize winners and the Street's most brilliant minds. Long-Term Capital Management promises to be the hedge fund that makes all others obsolete. Only the wealthy can join, ponying up millions for entry into this discreet private club. Banks line up to invest their own money. Returns soar to spectacular heights. New investors fight to get in. But as competitors copy his methods, Meriweather pushes further into uncharted territory. He leverages capital with borrowed money on a scale never attempted before. When markets crash across Indonesia, South America, and Russia in 1998, LTCM's bets turn catastrophic. Debts pile up like mountains. The fund spirals toward meltdown, threatening to drag major financial institutions from New York to Switzerland into its trillion-dollar abyss. Meriweather faces the collapse of his empire and the hubris that built it.
Genres: 20th-century, business, economics, non-fiction, 21st-century, finance
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: hubris, rise-and-fall
Setting: New York, Russia, South America, Switzerland
Period: 1998
290 pages · Kindle Edition · William Collins