I've enjoyed Michael Lewis' sports books and decided a while ago to try one of his other topics. This one has been sitting on my shelf for a while.
This book is about Michael Lewis' years working at Salomon Brothers as a salesperson. He intersperses chapters about his experiences working there with characterizations of Salomon Brothers as a company and historical perspectives on different types of financial vehicles. He explains the bond market and its origins in the instantiation of variable interest to address inflation. He also explains how the change in commission policy changed the stock and bond markets. Most interestingly these days, he traces the origins of the mortgage bond market and how mortgages are packaged and sold as investments.
Overall I thought the book was interesting and contained an appropriate level of technical detail to keep my interest and assuage my curiosity.
This book is about Michael Lewis' years working at Salomon Brothers as a salesperson. He intersperses chapters about his experiences working there with characterizations of Salomon Brothers as a company and historical perspectives on different types of financial vehicles. He explains the bond market and its origins in the instantiation of variable interest to address inflation. He also explains how the change in commission policy changed the stock and bond markets. Most interestingly these days, he traces the origins of the mortgage bond market and how mortgages are packaged and sold as investments.
Overall I thought the book was interesting and contained an appropriate level of technical detail to keep my interest and assuage my curiosity.
1 comment:
Great book. Interesting and sufficiently technical to kill two birds with one stone. Hilarious to see how chopping up and sellin mortgages can be so profitable.
Also amazing to see how compensation plans drive behavior in potentially destructive ways. There is enough money on Wall St. that one five year run may be enough to call it quits. Doesn't matter if you burn a few customers (i.e. pension funds) along the way.
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