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 | | Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors by Charles Gasparino ISBN-10: 9780743250238 ISBN-10: 0-7432-5023-0 ISBN-13: 9780743250238 ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-5023-8 Hardcover 2005-01-11 Free Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description "Blood on the Street is a riveting account of the Wall Street scam in which ordinary investors lost literally billions of dollars -- in many cases their life savings -- in one of the greatest deceptions ever, by the crack reporter who broke the original story. In one of the most outrageous examples of dirty dealing in the history of Wall Street, hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits were made during the booming 1990s as a result of research analysts issuing positive stock ratings on companies that kicked back investment banking business. Now, for the first time, award-winning journalist Charles Gasparino reveals the whole fascinating story of greed, arrogance, and corruption. It was Gasparino's front-page reporting in The Wall Street Journal that brought the story to national attention and spurred New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer to launch an official probe. Now, Gasparino goes behind his own headlines to tell the inside story of this spectacular swindle -- with revelations from his unprecedented access to never-before-published depositions and documents, including e-mail exchanges leading all the way up to Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill. Drawing on his research and interviews with industry insiders, Gasparino takes readers into the back rooms of Wall Street's top investment firms and captures the outsize personalities of three key players: Salomon Smith Barney's Jack Grubman, a braggart with one of the largest salaries on Wall Street; Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget, the Yale graduate who hyped his way to the top of the research pyramid; and Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker, the ""Queen of the Internet,"" who foresaw the market catastrophe but gave in to the pressures Blood on the Street shows how regulators, like former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, allowed the deceptive practices to fester and grow during the 1990s bubble, leaving the door open for a then- little-known attorney general from New York State to step in and make his mark by holding Wall Street accountable. Gasparino provides the first major account of Spitzer's rise to prominence, detailing how the attorney general pursued key players to build his case against Wall Street, including his shifting allegiance to the powerful New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso. A fast-paced narrative rich in sharp insights, Blood on the Street is the definitive book on the financial debacle that affected millions of Americans. " | ||
Reviews | ||
Great on the facts, but poorly written Blood on the Street is an excellent factual account of the research analyst scandal that drove the internet craze of the 1990s and ultimately the bubble that burst in the early 2000s. Even though this book is now several years old, it is helpful, as this country is currently undergoing another financial crisis, to look at past crises to inform judgment on how this and other scandals are created. For that purpose, this book remains very timely. However, despite the clear benefits, I found Blood on the Street to be lacking in some important areas. For one, I found that the flow of the book was quite poor - it read more like a series of magazine or newspaper articles than a single cohesive work. For example, Gasparino frequently repeats himself unnecessarily (he explains what it means to engage in short selling no less than four or five times throughout the book). I was also left wondering why he chose to portray Mary Meeker (the "Queen of the Internet") as a singularly sympathetic character, despite her obvious contributions to the internet bubble. Without evidence to the contrary, I can only conclude that he did so only because she was the only analyst to cooperate with his research, which, if true, would represent a serious deficiency in journalistic integrity. Finally, I found a number of particularly graphic accounts of certain communications involving Jack Grubman to be gratuitous, demeaning an otherwise good piece of journalism. Gasparino invites comparison with Michael Lewis's "Liar's Poker", the account of the rise and eventual fall of Salomon Brothers, by referring to it several times in the book. This comparison is not a good one. Because of the quality of the writing, Blood on the Street falls short of the stand for tales of Wall Street excesses, a standard set by Lewis and by James Stewart ("Den of Thieves", probably the best of this genre). That said, Gasparino deserves a great deal of credit for the work he did with the Wall Street Journal to identify the issues discussed in this book (as well as credit for understating his role in that process in the book itself). From a factual standpoint, Blood on the Street hits it right on the head. The research analyst scandal was an embarrassment to the broker-dealer community and to the securities industry as a whole. Blood on the Street is well worth the read for the sake of educating yourself on the facts of the research analyst scandal and for providing context to other market disturbances, including the most recent. Just don't expect too much. | ||
Don't think you can expect more from a Reporter For those of you like me, who have not lived/followed the dot.com bubble and decline, this book will somewhat be helpful: it draws the chronological events with probably some details, confidential elements and definitely clearly picture the Bad Guys responisble for the disaster that led to so many individual investors financial failure. Lesson I have learned, as an individual investor: Always use your JUDGMENT-Do not trust so and so because they have been experience or because they seat in a fancy office in Wall Street. | ||
Great book in predicting Wall Street's pattern This book shows that events, people, and situation that lead to the economic down turn in the 2000's. It is now happening again in 2008!! The differences is situation, location, and the products. The same cast of characters (CEOs) are still profiting through deceit. The common denominator is still greed. The majority of the problem is: Back then, it was tech stock analyst. Now, it is subprime mortgage back security bonds analyst. With the analyst's endorsement/downgrade to a product: 1. It can either be a buy or a sell 2. It can either be a triple bond rated or a Junk bond If you can influence/corrupt an analyst's OPINION (such as managers putting pressure on the analyst), you can make a lot of money because investors base on their investments base on the analyst's research/opinion. At the same time the buyers/investors such as small investors and yes- even towns all over the world gets screw. How do they get away with lies without the SEC getting on their back? The corporations contribute to the SEC's BOSS's campaign. Base on the Wall Street's pattern of deceit, the next wave of economic down turn may hurt not only the small investors, and towns but even major cities. This book is a must read for every investor. | ||
Internet selling marketplace Plenty of detail here in this book about the Internet IPO craze of the 90's and all the players involved. | ||
Top Pick for a Behind-the-Scenes Look at "Street" Games Did you lose money in the tech bubble during the late 90's? Gasparino goes behind the scenes to reveal how investors were completely duped by the world's largest investment firms. If anyone wants to know the games Wall Street plays with the markets, this is often my number one suggestion. | ||