Happy Sunday to you all! I've been taking notes since I joined you all in Feb 2021, and I wanted to share my reading list, in case you were looking for something to read during the holidays. This is stuff I'm interested in, so it might be a slightly weird mix. As befits an ape.
"A Demon of Our Own Design" (Richard Bookstaber) - foreshadows 2008 crisis, draws LTCM and 1987 crash as themes
"Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk" (Peter L. Bernstein) - history of risk in trading
"All About High-Frequency Trading" (Michael Durbin) - rise of HFT technique
"All The Devils Are Here" (Bethany McLean, Joseph Nocera) - general 2008 crisis shit (use for sources)
"All The President's Bankers" (Nomi Prins) - outlines history of Wall Street's interference in the White House, from Panic of 1907 to Obama's tenure
"A Manifesto for Social Progress" (Marc Fleurbaey) - guide to defeating corporate robber barons
"American Kleptocracy" (Casey Michel) - primer on how financial corruption around the world moved to America
"A Random Walk Down Wall St" (Burton G. Malkiel) - good overview of markets, not super in depth
"Autoworkers Under the Gun" (Gregg Shotwell) - story of how Delphi Auto (spinoff of GM) was destroyed to pass pension obligations to taxpayers and loot the corp (from a Delphi worker)
"Ayn Rand Nation" (Gary Weiss) - look at Ayn Rand's influnce on key people in regulation slashes (i.e. Alan Greenspan)
"Bailout" (Neil Barofsky) - ex Special Inspector General of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) writes a memoir arguing that the US Treasury is now an unofficial extension of Wall Street
"Barbarians at the Gate" (Bryan Burrough, John Heylar) - fall of tobacco conglomerate RJR Nabisco (extremely detailed and well sourced descriptions of world of 1980s leveraged buyouts)
"Beat The Dealer" (Edward Thorpe) - guide to beating blackjack (dated to 1960s games, so more of a snapshot of history)
"Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralized Finance and the End of Banks" (Steven Boykey Sidley, Simon Dingle) - gud intro to DeFi
"Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women's Work" (Jenny Brown) - look at money and people involved in trying to increase birth rate, with argument that it's an intentional attempt to create a perpetual United States labour pool
"Black Edge" (Sheelah Kolhatkar) - biography of Steve A Cohen and his various speculatory bullshit; it serves as argument for why corporate crime is never prosecuted or punished
"Black Tuesday" (Nomi Prins) - novel on the Crash of 1929 (more fictional and inspired by real-life events, so use for finding sources more than as a source)
"Black Wall Street" (Hannibal B Johnson) - covers US neighborhood that tried to start its own investments
"Blood in the Streets" (James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg) - 1987 book about disaster investing (seminal bc this is when LTCM fell apart)
"Broken Markets" (Joe Saluzzi) - HFT
"Bull By The Horns" (Sheila Bair) - former head of the FDIC during 2008 crisis writes account of Tim Geithner (former US Treasury Secretary), as a wider examination of Citigroup & others
"Bully Market" (Jamie Fiore Higgins) - expose book from a Goldman Sachs alum (whole career there; 1998-2016); main expertise was in keeping hedge funds net short • Book Explanation wallstreetonparade.com/2022/08/goldman-sachs-secrets-spill-out-in-new-book-by-a-former-managing-director/
"Citizens DisUnited" (Robert A. G. Monks) - describes rise of "manager-kings" in US, uncoupling shareholders from power over company decisions
"Collateral and Financial Plumbing" (Manmohan Singh) - textbook on how collateral works and is moved
"Collusion" (Nomi Prins) - discussion of post-2008 bailouts, & makes argument that another large crash is inevitable
"Confessions of an Economic Hitman" (John Perkins) - international fuckery, author may or may not be trustworthy
"Confidence Men" (Ron Suskind) - US journalist writes acc of White House from 2008-2011 (feat. Tim Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag, etc)
"Conspiracy of Fools" (Kurt Eichenwald) - Enron
"Crack the Funding Code" (Judy Robinett) - guide for business owners looking for private funding (i.e. VCs); of particular help is the sections about when to walk away from funding offers
"Crisis of Confidence: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud" (Tom Mueller) - makes case that all of America's gov entities have been corrupted by greed
"Dark Pools" (Scott Patterson) - take on HFT, broker-owned dark pools, and electronic trading; written as a follow-up on his former book "The Quants" pdfdrive.com/dark-pools-e58493704.html • Supplementary Info (SOES Bandits, aka Small Order Execution System): -> ft.com/content/6dcd1560-56f9-33de-909d-5849860a86f9 -> investopedia.com/terms/s/soesbandits.asp -> openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/95/1/FTsonis_MFA_Thesis.pdf -> reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/yx51lx/catskillcrypto/iwnvnxp -> traderlife.co.uk/interviews/pod-chats/trader-interview-scott-patterson-dark-pools/
"Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald T****, and an Epic Trail of Destruction" (David Enrich) - collection of interviews regarding dealings of Deutsche Bank -> no asterisks, bot just won't let me post if I include his full last name lol
"Debt: The First 5000 Years" (David Graeber) - history of debt (possibly not reliable, check author's credibility first) -> warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/statesofdamage/syllabus201516/graeber-debt_the_first_5000_years.pdf
"Den of Thieves" (James B. Stewart) - insider trading schemes of 1980s, with a focus on leveraged buyouts & similar
"Derivatives and Risk Management" (R. Madhumathi, M. Ranganatham) - read in Google Books for VW squeeze (p152)
"Dreamland" (Sam Quinones) - story of how sugar cane farmers created a new distribution system for opiates to enter the US from 2000-2015 ish -> Companion Article (same author): theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174
"Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty" (Patrick Radden Keefe) - history of Sackler family, their central role in opioids crisis, founding of Purdue Pharma + marketing of pharmaceuticals • Companion article on why FDA did nothing (McKinsey was consulting for both FDA and Purdue Pharma) - nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/mckinsey-purdue-fda-records.html
"Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment" (Grady Hillhouse) - book from guy who runs Practical Engineering YouTube channel, regarding water infrastructure
"Fast Food Nation" (Eric Schlosser) - extensive research on US fast food industry, from meatpackers to ads
"F.I.A.S.C.O." (Frank Portnoy) - 1990s derivatives structurer writes on subject
"Fixers" (Michael M. Thomas) - points out how Wall Street retains influence in US government, regardless of President
"Flash Boys" (Michael Lewis) - high frequency trading interviews (warning: a lot is correct, but a lot is incorrect too)
"Fooling Some of the People All of the Time" (David Einhorn) - author provides comprehensive look at Allied Capital & subsidiary Business Loan Express from Apr 2002 to Dec 2007 (use for sources and timelines only; author is an activist short seller for aforementioned corp, and so is likely to defend that practice)
"Green Empire" (Karthryn Ziewitz, June Wiaz) - history of St. Joe's Company (largest landowner in Florida)
"Griftopia" (Matt Taibbi) - pol journalist creates timelines for basic Wall St stuff (mainly gud for insights into Goldman); also draws argument that oil in 2008 went crazy partly bc of legislative shit influenced by Wall Street
"Hedge Hogs" (Barbara Dreyfuss) - acc of Amaranth Advisors, LLC; how it went from $9.668B in client assets in 2006, to losing over $6B in 4 WEEKS
"High-Frequency Trading" (Irene Aldridge) - highly technical book recommended by pwnwtfbbq, used to support pwn's belief that the entire stock market is algo driven
"Homewreckers" (Aaron Glantz) - list (incomplete, possibly politically biased) of people who got rich off of 2008
"Hopeless" (anthology of works, edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank) - about Obama's rise, corruption involved
"How Wall Street Fleeces America" (Stephen Lendman) - PPT, ESF, CRMPG, and the US gov's planned overthrow of Guatemala as early as 1951 • Companion Article: "How Markets Really Work" (Stephen Lendman) countercurrents.org/lendman290509.htm
"Infectious Greed" (Frank Portnoy) - detailed history of derivatives on Wall St
"It Takes A Pillage" (Nomi Prins) - how banks looted the Treasury and stole the 2008 bailout
"Jacked" (Nomi Prins) - conservatives in America looting money; an account of anecdotes around the US
"JPMadoff" (Helen Davis Chaitman, Lance Gotthofer) - outlines how/why JP can be charged under RICO statutes
"King Icahn" (Mark Stevens) - bio of Carl Icahn as raider and activist (use for info and maybe insights)
"King of Capital" (David Carey, John E. Morris) - history of Blackstone
"Killing The Host" (Michael Hudson) - outlines history of Wall Street's roles
"Knights, Raiders and Targets: The Impact of the Hostile Takeover" (John C. Coffee Jr, Louis Lowenstein, Susan Rose Ackerman) - academic discussion of hostile takeovers, released 1988
"Lessons Not Learned" (Susanne Trimbath) - primer on Dodd Frank Act, 2008 crisis, shorting, and settlement failures' role in the crash
"Liar's Poker" (Michael Lewis) - culture of bond trading
"Meet Me in the Bathroom" (Lizzy Goodman) - author conducted over 200 interviews to create oral history of how New York revived rock & roll 2001-2011
"Men and Mysteries of Wall Street" (James K. Medbery) - Wall St snapshot in 1878
"Merchants of Grain" (Dan Morgan) - international grain trade, dated to 1979 ("Out of the Shadows" is the update)
"Mike! Wall Street's Mayor" (Neil Fabricant) - acc of Michael Bloomberg
"Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance" (Janet Gleeson) - book on John Law + role in Mississippi Bubble
"Monopolized" (David Dayen) - personal stories from Americans on monopolies affecting their lives
"My Life as a Quant" (Emanuel Derman) - quant trading origins, precursor to HFT
"Naked, Short, and Greedy" (Suzanne Trimbath) - history of DTCC & FTDs
"Ninety Percent of Everything" (Rose George) - talks about interdependence of every part of modern economy, done in the quest for lower prices
"Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street" (Carmen Segarra) - NY Fed stuff
"No One Would Listen" (Henry Markopolos) - account of journalist who investigated Bernie Madoff and how he was ignored by the SEC
"No Shortcuts to Organizing to Win in the New Gilded Age" (Jane McAlevey) - history of union leadership trends
"Octopus: Sam Israel, The Secret Market, and Wall Street's Wildest Con" (Guy Lawson) - desperate trader gets conned; probably all bullshit, but the names and concepts are worth reading -> Danny Casolaro - journalist, looking into "Octopus" and PROMIS scandal
"Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives" (John C. Hull) - textbook; free pdf available in hell-mitc's DD
"Organized Labor and the Black Worker" (Philip S. Foner, Robin D. G. Kelley) - dense, but highly informative and detailed acc of US labor history
"Other People's Money" (John Kay) - good outline of flaws in US economics
"Other People's Money" (Nomi Prins) - describes a 15 year history in banking as an executive, day to day details
"Out of the Shadows: The New Merchants of Grain" (Jonathan Kingsman) - 2019 update for Dan Morgan's 1979 book on international grain trade
"Panic!" (Michael Lewis) -
"People Get Ready" (Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols) - account of how US democracy was corporatized, and a strategic road map to a peaceful revolution
"Permanent Distortion" (Nomi Prins) - former Goldman Sachs veteran writes scathing critique of Fed's QE as a Ponzi scheme for the rich (tread carefully; the anger is warranted but accuracy of the details is what matters in reading this)
"Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom" (Sarah Seo) - analysis of how history of modern policing intersects with car's history
"Prisms of the People" (Hahrie Han) - analysis of factors that make protests and movements successful
"Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" (Steve Coll) - history of ExxonMobil (1979-2010)
"Prophet of Blood: The Untold Story of Ervil Lebaron and the Lambs of God" (Ben Bradlee Jr) - detailed cult story that apparently links LeBaron family to Mitt Romney (according to descendent of LeBarons, AnnaKLeBaron, but could easily be mega tinfoil so idk)
"Quants" (Scott Patterson) - does a comparison of HFT strats to poker, and delves into the background of "Beat the Dealer" author Ed Thorp, Pete Muller of Morgan Stanley, Ken Griffin of Citadel, James Simon of Renaissance Tech, Clifford S Asness and Aaron Brown of AQR Capital Mgmt, & Boaz Weinstein of Deutsche Bank
"Reinventing Collapse" (Dmitry Orlov) - blueprint for America's collapse based on author's expertise w/ Soviet Union
"Reminisces of a Stock Operator" (Edwin Lefevre) - historical tactics for market cornering; biography of Jesse Livermore, stock speculator
"Restricted Data" (Alex Wellerstein) - history of US nuclear secrecy
"Secrets of the Temple" (William Greider) - how Federal Reserve operates
"Secrecy World" (Jake Bernstein) - tax evasion techniques by the rich
"Securities Transfer: Principles and Procedures" (Martin Torosian) - book on backend of US securities shit
"Seed Wars" (Keith Aoki) - seed patents
"Servants of the Damned" (David Enrich) - expose of Jones Day (law firm protecting giant financial interests like T****, tobacco, opioids, & minimized sexual abuse of Catholic Church) and similar entities of "Big Law" -> asterisks because bot won't let me post his full name
"Solidarity Divided" (Bill Fletcher Jr) - US labor history, focused on today
"Streets of Hope" (Holly Sklar, Peter Medoff) - tale of Roxbury neighborhood in Boston, how they overcame poverty in major chunks by organizing
"Taking Mr. Exxon" (Philip Jett) - story of kidnapping of Exxon's President on Apr 29, 1992
"Taming the Megabanks" (Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr) - covers history of what led up to repeal of Glass-Steagall
"Tax Evasion and the Rule of Law in Latin America" (Marcelo Bergman) - tax shit for Latin American jurisdictions
"Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works" (Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, Christian Chavagneux) - explanation of how tax havens are integral to world economy and skew globalization costs
"Tax The Rich!" (Morris Pearl) - former BlackRock exec provides intro to how tax code gets exploited by the rich
"The Ascent of Money" (Niall Ferguson) - history of money
"The Big Short" (Michael Lewis) - more info and better timeline than movie
"The Caesar's Palace Coup" (Sujeet Indap) - 2015 restructuring of Caesar's Palace casino (involves many Kraken players: Apollo Global Mgmt, TPG Cap, Elliot Mgmt, Oaktree Capital, etc)
"The Citizen's Share" (Joseph R. Blasi) - multiple case studies used to argue people should share in profits
"The Chickenshit Club" (Jesse Eisinger) - regulatory capture of US regulators
"The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating" (Dave Tomar) - Lauer's friend wrote contract cheating (prevalence, effects, & laws against it) book
"The Creature of Jekyll Island" (G. Edward Griffin) - seminal take on rise of the Federal Reserve (tread carefully; no sources are cited, author is hardcore tinfoil believing HIV doesn't cause AIDS and various chemtrail conspiracies)
"The Death of an Heir" (Philip Jett) - story of kidnapping of Coors Brewery heir on Feb 5, 1960
"The Devil's Chessboard" (David Talbot) - depicts Allen Dulles (CIA co-founder) and his role in global economic fuckery • "Death is Just Around the Corner" (Podcast about CIA history; newest episodes are Patreon-only and prob not searchable, but backlog is gr8)
"The End of the Everything Bubble" (Alaadair Nairn) - makes argument that Wall St bullied Fed into infinite QE post 2008 (use for sources; credibility of the author is not known)
"The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism" (Paul Craig Roberts) - very detailed history on US monetary policy, economic theory, and Wall St's history
"The Fed" (Martin Mayer) - organization politics of the Fed (tread very carefully, be critical of sources; author is biased and prone to snide comments)
"The Fed Unbound" (Lev Menand) - very recent book (2022), describing how Fed effectively made loans to the planet as a whole in Mar 2020, to avoid collapse
"The Frackers" (Gregory Zuckerman) - history of oil
"The History of the Standard Oil Company" (Ida M. Tarbell) - deep dive into kraken megacorp of 100 years ago
"The Hyperinflation Survival Guide" (Gerald Swanson) - analyzing surviving in hyperinflation in the US, written 1989
"The Hypocritical Hegemon" (Lukas Hagelberg) - effects of US domestic tax policy on global tax policy, plus role US has played in offshore tax havens (both creation and crackdown)
"The Jungle" (Upton Sinclair) - novel but based on history of anti-worker shit in US meatpacking industry in 1910s ish
"The League" (John Eisenberg) - history of NFL
"The Least of Us" (Sam Quinones) - tale of designer and synthetic drugs in US
"The Lords of Easy Money" (Christopher Leonard) - explains QE
"The Lost Bank" (Kirsten Grind) - fall of Washington Mutual Bank to Citigroup
"The Market Structure Crisis" (Haim Bodek, Stanislav Dolgopolov) - HFT infrastructure (read after Flash Boys + Bodek's "The Problem of HFT" book)
"The Mathematics of Gambling" (Edward Thorpe) - dude invented a lot of the principles of card counting, so it could be instructive
"The Meat Racket" (Christopher Leonard) - discusses Tyson Foods' role in takeover of US meat industry
"The Men Who Solved The Markets" (Greg Zuckerman) - founding of Renntech, most successful hedge fund
"The Misbehavior of Markets" (Benoit Mandelbrot) - markets, math, fractals
"The Money Laundry" (J. C. Sharman) - review of AML laws & how shit they are
"The New Tycoons" (Jason Kelly) - history of entire private equity industry
"The Number That Killed Us" (Pablo Triana) - development of VaR and its role in financial crises (use for timeline and concepts only; author doesn't have a great track record in his other books)
"The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins" (Jeff Connaughton) - former Chief of Staff to Sen. Ted Kaufman (took Joe B****'s seat as Delaware Senator when former became Obama's VP) describes "The Blob" aka nebulous network of alliances in Washington ->asterisks because bot won't let me include his name
"The Predators' Ball" (Connie Bruck) - rise of junk bond raiders and Drexel's Ball, colloquially known as title bc it became an arena for raiders & victims
"The Predictors" (Thomas A. Bass) - intersection of trading and chaos theory
"The Problem of HFT" (Haim Bodek) - HFT collected writings (easier than his other book, but read after Flash Boys)
"The Rare Metals War" (Guillarme Pitron) - explanation of international rare metals trade + how breaking free of fossil fuels is setting us up to be dependent instead on rare metals
"The Smartest Guys in the Room" (Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind) - Enron scandal and its aftermath
"The Sovereign Individual" (James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg) - lots of speculation on human trends regarding move from industrial to information age
"The Theory of the Working Class" (Thorstein Veblen) - explains general structures of upper class, dated 1899
"The Treason of the Senate" (David Graham Phillips) - names 75 Senators (out of 96 total, at time of publication in 1906) beholden to corporate interests
"The Truth About The Trusts" (John Moody) - written by creator of Moody's, describes in extraordinary detail the function and history of trusts (esp. for trust's real purpose of making asset ownership irrelevant to asset control, thus decoupling money from power)
"The Truth About World Financial Group: Unauthorized" (Steve Siebold) - journalism (inc 107 interviews) of World Financial Group (insurance)
"The Weaponisation of Everything" (Mark Galeotti) - argues world moving towards state of permanent low-level conflict, unnoticed & undeclared
"The World According to Monsanto" (Marie-Monique Robin) - seed patents
"The World for Sale" (Javier Blas, Jack Farchy) - fuckery in commodity trading
"The Unbanking of America" (Lisa Servon) - insight into unbanked people
"They Were Her Property" (Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers) - book on white female slave owners in the American South
"This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race" (Nicole Perlroth) - history of zero day cyberwarfare and greatest dangers
"Token Economy" (Shermin Voshmgir) - gud and recent book on DeFi
"Trading With The Enemy" (Nicholas W. Maier) - former employee of Cramer describes his mania & shit (use for info)
"Under the Influence" (Peter Hernon, Terry Ganey) - unauthorized expose of the Anheuser-Busch family dynasty (formerly America's foremost beer)
"Wall Street Versus America" (Gary Weiss) - 2006 book warning about the upcoming crash, with lots of details
"War Is A Racket" (Smedley Butler) - short novella of being "a gangster for capitalism"
"What's The Matter With Delaware?" (Hal Weitzman) - history of Delaware as HQ for incorporation & tax avoidance
"When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" (Roger Lowenstein) - story of LCTM firm
"When Money Was in Fashion" (June Breton Fisher) - rough history of Wall St via lens of Goldman Sachs' founding, written by Henry Goldman's grandkid (use for insights on today's tactics; a lot of smoky boardroom shit)
"Why I Left Goldman Sachs" (Greg Smith) - expose book on Goldman
"Winners Take All" (Anand Giridharadas) - talks about scam of global philanthropy