Investment-bank

I would advise this book to anyone trying to learn anything about banking. It talks about how to select the best savings and how to find CD's

This book increases my understanding of the Japanese culture, psyche and love for bureaucracy, and how Japan's strengths in manufacturing does not necessarily translate well or able to be copied to Financial Dominance.

After reading this book, it is shocking to imagine all those trillions earned by Japanese manufacturing got squandered by arrogant, ill-equipped bureaucrats.

He does ramble on a bit, and repeat himself, but since he wrote from loads of interviews, I guess they all say the same things.

Many lessons for us to learn here in Malaysia. If they get to wake up and increase their competencies in the financial field, that'll be great to see.

The authors had a way of inflating what they're capable of writing. It reads just like any other so so old texts. Much of the academic discussions can be found in most other finance books. Beyond that, real business insight? Forget about it. You learn much more by watching evening news.

This book is outdated. The coverage was mostly corporate finance, not investment banking. In addition, I heard and confirmed that the materials covered in this book are close to 100 percent identical to another book by the same authors under slightly different title. A big disappointment.

This book is a good though outdated overview of the investment banking business. I would also strongly recommend instead or in addition
the Vault Career Guide to Investment Banking.... The Vault guide includes more
detailed overviews of all the departments and functions of an investment
bank including corporate finance, M&A, sales, trading, private client
services, credit, etc. If you are a job seeker in investment banking
also try the Vault Guide to Finance Interviews, which contains actual
investment banking finance interview questions and answers and which I
found to be enormously valuable in my Wall Street job search.

I think positive reviews for these books come from "Vault Staff" The book is tiny and thin, with doublespaced paragraphs to attempt to beef it up. So, each page is in this book has approximately 1/3 of a page's worth of information.

Having said that, we are treated to about 20 pages of information on the financial industry. We are treated to information like "the stock market is where shares of stock - pieces of ownership in companies - are traded every day." No mention of currency markets.

Then, we have 30 pages listing the jobs. The jobs listed include "trader" and each of one, yes one SHORT paragraph describing what they do.

Finally, a list of investment banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) with a 1 to 3 pages describing what it's like to work there (long hours).

Most of this information is common knowledge to people who have half a clue about the industry - TIAA pays less than Goldman: who knew?

One great thing about this book is the advertisements: Not just for other Vault products and sites, but for a few investment banks and recruiters - this may be be the opportunity the readers are hoping for.

I don't normally write reviews, but I just got this book and had to write. The book has detailed insider accounts of life inside every major investment banking firms, including its history, areas of specialization, and tips on the hiring and interviewing process. Highly recommended for job seekers and consultants alike.

I found this book to be immensely helpful to distinguishing the various investment banks and commercial banks. There are also specific tips for each company on what they look for in the job interview. Particularly as wall street is downsizing, I think the Vault book provided me with the edge I needed to land my job in a tough job market.

Although this might be a perfect book for those looking for simplicity, I would not advise it to anybody with previous exposure to finance.
The book is a way too simple, and reveals huge ignorance on the markets outside the US.
I think the book is very much a benchmark to reveal ignorant finance - teachers.

I've used some version of this book for many years now, and I've seen it evolve. I think, as other reviewers have said, that there are some simplified portions of the book, especially those parts dealing with monetary economics. There are other portions which lay out the principles as only these authors can, and those parts are extremely helpful and valuable. This book allows me to teach my notes and thoughts with a textbook serving as a reference and an introduction -- it doesn't get in my way, in other words. I use it along with several other texts, and I think it gets the job done. Students seem to like it as well, mainly for its clarity. For someone wanting to learn the basics, this is an excellent choice.

This book is not an advanced book on financial markets, but it is a good introductory book. I use this book for my undergraduate teaching. Both I and students are happy about the coverage of the book. It is well organized and well written. Improvements will be valuable in the derivatives markets and risk management areas.

Somehow Nick Leeson ended up with the reputation as some kind of whiz kid but reading this book you get a different sense. The derivatives Mr. Leeson was trading do not seem particularly sophisticated (don't compare this to LTCM). But you wouldn't learn much about them from this book. I got the sense that Mr. Leeson was grappling with very basic financial questions. As a consequence, the book tends to be repetitive in a description of losses getting out of control and the soap opera building around that. You also have a nagging feeling that you never get the full story. However, the book is interesting where it describes the complete breakdown of financial and management controls.

Compelling story of the rise and hard fall of one of the "Master of the Universe". Leeson tell his side of the story in a frank and honest way descibing his mistakes, bad luck and arrogance in a build-up of events that will end up in disaster. At the end of the book you can only wonder: for one that failed and got caught, how many walked away with clean hands?

Nicely written account of the incredible story of Baring's failure. Traders will appreciate Leeson's inside perspective on big time floor trading as well as the excruciating madness to which he descends in the face of unimaginable losses and eight-figure margin calls.

Leeson was a bad trader, good liar and compulsive gambler. A bad mix. Add to that profit hungry executives who fed Leeson's addiction with Baring's entire capital stock, and you end up with a busted bank. When he's finally caught, a prison mate tells Nick, "It was a mercy killing. If you hadn't done it someone else would've." Capitalism, for good or ill, is wonderfully efficient at transferring wealth from weak hands to the strong. The surprise is not that the 232-year old Barings went bust overnight, but rather, that it lasted so long in such incompetent hands. There are those among the British elite who flourish only because the Establishment takes care of its own, even the idiot cousins. Barings had more than its share of these.

The real tragedy of this story is not the wrecking of Barings, but the wrecking of Lisa Leeson who, by all accounts, was an angel. Everyone else got what they deserved, but she was truly the innocent bystander caught in the crossfire.

I spent 30 years at Goldman Sachs as a senior risk arbitrage trader in the equities division. I retired in 1995. The information contained in the volume has been carefully and thoughtfully researched and the result is a wonderful historical analysis of Goldman Sachs. The book is eminantly readable and easily understandable, even for those uninitiated in the banking business. My only negative criticism refers to the excessive space given to the recent history of the firm. There was a clear change in the firms' culture after the greedy portion of the 1980's. The author is right on the mark when she tells how important the people (not only the partners) were to the creation of the special atmosphere that pervaded the firm and how very special it was to be a part of it. Although profitability was always a clear motive, it surely was not the sole purpose for which the firm existed. To profile a few bond traders and enumerate their spectacular successes (and failures) in the 1990s clearly indicates how things have changed from previous decades. I worked with Gus Levy for 10 years and Bob Rubin for 20 years and from a trader's point of view these were the spectacular people at least in the Equities Division. I doubt that the client interest is foremost in the culture of Goldman Sachs today as it was for the first 125 years. Although the importance of the client remains high today, it is profitability and risk taking that are the motivating forces.

As one of the most successful Wall Street titans, Goldman Sachs has a history of empowering very smart and dedicated people. This is that story. It addresses the personalities and culture that drives Goldman to success. For anyone interested in the financial markets, it is a joy to read. Some things I did not know:

1) GS focuses on the client and maintains a long-term focus. Long-term greed.

2) During the 1980's, GS set itself apart from its competitors when they refused to represent any company that was the aggressor in a hostile takeover. As such, they billed enormous business as a "defense" investment bank. (pg 19)

3) "You cannot just be an employee. The firm demands that you be a contributor." (pg 21)

4) There is a culture of understatement. "A mild shabbiness seems to be almost a status symbol." (pg 25) The main office does not say Goldman Sachs on the front. It just reads the first two numbers of the address: 85.

5) GS started out as a family firm specializing in commercial paper. By the 1960's, it was handling 50% of the country's commercial paper. (pg 34)

6) GS was almost ruined when it was involved in the speculating leading up to the crash of 1929. The investors lost 92% of their investment in the infamous GSTC investment trust.

7) Sidney Weinberg is considered the father of modern Goldman Sachs. (pg 49) He worked at Goldman for more than 50 years and started out as a helper to the porter: cleaning shoes, and brushing hats.

8) Gus Levy became the next senior partner in 1969. Levy was from trading, not banking, and would "prepare the company for the trading-oriented work of the 1980's." (pg 63)

9) The next leadership was in teams: John Weinberg & John Whitehead, then Steve Friedman & Robert Rubin, then Hank Paulson & John Corzine.

10) In the 1980's, the profit centers were M&A and arbitrage.

11) Historically, GS was known for its excellent people, but not its innovation. One JP Morgan banker said that GS bankers were incredibly good, but predictable.

12) Partners were making incredible money in the 1990's, but naturally the competition was fierce: 4000 Vice presidents competing for 32 partner seats. (pg 135)

13) Numerous stories of GS's great traders (Becerra, O'Brien etc...) and how they would make $80 million in trading profits one month, then lose $100 million just one month later. At times, the speculation would get out of hand. One person commented that GS's London trading desk was "testosterone alley." (pg 192)

14) In early 1994, the firm was in a crisis. Its top management had stepped down and the company was losing $200 million a month due to heavy trading losses and a bear market. (pg 202)

15) GS invented, and still dominates, the block trading market. Great story: Kuwaiti Investment Office (KIO) gives three investment banks one hour to price $2 billion of British Petroleum (BP) stock. GS wins the bids, transacts the stock smoothly and gains a reputation as the firm able to handle block trades. (pg 248)

16) Paulson said, "Good firms worry about competition, great companies worry about clients" (pg 250)

Although it is clear from Ms. Endlich's tone that she nearly workships everything about Goldman Sachs, this is a well researched and competently written book. It covers in detail the history of the bank, paints portraits of some of the key players in some detail and presents a compelling overall picture of the bank's history.

Where the book falls short is in its financial and overall business details (compare to "The House of Rothschild" by Niall Ferguson). Overall, and interesting and insightful read.

There is not much to this book - 80 pages of large print, double-spaced text. The book is organized into 10 sections - one for each "bigwig" that was interviewed. You get the impression that each contributor was asked to talk for 5 or 10 minutes about something - anything - that pertained to their job.

More disturbing is that the final 4 contributors are not investment bankers at all, but are venture capitalists (who talk about venture capital), so 40% of the book has nothing to do with investment banking.

Finally (and rather remarkably), I don't think the book gave any advice on actually becoming an investment banker - wasn't that the point?

Two stars is probably a generous assessment, but the book does shed some light on what investment banks actually "do," and the traits of good investment bankers - albeit very senior ones, since the job description of a junior banker is very different from senior one (read: crunching numbers v. generating M&A ideas & maintaining relationships with CEOs).

I would highly recommend this book to anyone going into, or thinking of going into investment banking. I am now an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and this book was really helpful to me landing the job (and getting integrated)

The excerpts from leading investment bankers is extremely useful and really helps for interviewing or just getting integrated into a new investment bank. Especially useful was the chapter written by the head of investment banking from Merrilly Lynch.

The book is short and very easy to read. I highligh recommend it for anyone interested in investment banking.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of various money markets.

The reviewers that have written that this book is out of date are absolutely right. However, I had many other problems with the book even when the last edition was relatively new.

If you know nothing about money and financial markets, you will learn something. But if already understand these markets, you will be confounded by the mountains impossible-to-verify anecdotes and the many passages that are extremely vague. Apparently, what collection casual comments from a few people out of thousands of market participants constitutes hard research. At least the data that is easy to come by is in there.

This is fairly easy to read, but at the same time horribly written in places. I felt that the task the author assigned herself was just too overwhelming at times, and her skill and attention frequently faltered. Better to leave parts out, however, than to fill them in with mediocrity and innaccuracy.

If you are completely clueless about this sort of stuff, you probably ought to buy this book. But these days, you will find more than enough -- and more complete -- information by simply doing a web search.

I was inspired to purchase this book after a well-known Risk Management website said that the 2002 edition was out. (They have fixed this little error on their website.) It's a great book for stories to tell your clients and I am sure it was a great source when it came out, but the most current edition is 13 years old! It is very hard for me to read this when I am constantly thinking that every description of some aspect of the money market may be outdated. I feel that booksellers and reviewers who fail to mention this when they praise this volume are doing a disservice, unless they know for a fact that the money markets have not changed.

It appears by deduction that Mr. Choudrhy (alias Gagan Singh) is responsible for all of the one-star reviews below. It seems he feels that any commercially successful book with titles similar to his releases are over-rated, for beginners, or offer nothing new and deserve multiple negative reviews. Fair and balanced is not in the mindset.

Ms. Stigum's excellent work on the dynamics of the U.S. money markets that can be used for analogies to the global money markets is appreciated by financial experts the world over. Believe the positive reviews and don't miss an opportunity to read a find work on the financial markets.

I found this book to be very theoretical and not practical at all. Save your money!

This book is good for those who already know what OpRisk is all about, or at least are familiar with banking terms and financial measurement systems. If you are new to the game, you are likely to become very frustrated.

Mr Hoffman throws a multitude of operational risk "building blocks" on the floor in the opening chapter, tells us that we will use them to build a "house", picks them up one-by-one and explains them - sometimes well, sometimes poorly. If you already have the big picture, i.e. you know what the finished "house" is supposed to look like, you will be able to follow - most of the time (see below). If you know little or nothing about OpRisk, I am fully convinced that the book would be easier to understand backwards - i.e. the chapters are read in reverse order (no joke).

There are also several points in the book which had me scratching my head at the consistency of it all! To pick just one example, on page 186 there is a list of what Mr Hoffman calls "Top Down" and "Bottom Up" risk assessment methodologies. In this list, "Delphi Scenarios" is listed as one of the TOP DOWN methods. Two pages later, under the heading "BOTTOM-UP RISK ASSESSMENT METHODS", Delphi Scenarios are discussed/mentioned!!! What is it really - a Top Down or Bottom Up method??

There are several other examples throughout the book likely to cause more than a little confusion to the attentive beginner.

Douglas Hoffman's extensive experience in the field of operational risk shines through in this book as he takes operational risk out of the classroom and applies it to real world examples. This is an insightful read for any operational risk professional.