“What Gutfreund said has become a legend at Salomon Brothers and a visceral part of its corporate identity. He said: “One hand,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“These Ginnie Maes suck. They get longer [in maturity] when rates go up, and shorter when rates go down, and nobody wants… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
I thought instead of a good rule for survival on Wall Street: Never agree to anything proposed on someone else's boat or… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“On Wall Street, the lawyers play the same role as medics in war: They come in after the shooting is over to… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“But everyone wanted to be a Big Swinging Dick, even the women. Big Swinging Dickettes.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Ronan, for his part, couldn’t quite believe how ordinary the people on Wall Street were. “It’s a whole industry of bullshit,” he… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“This completed the curious reversal in roles that occurred in the early 1980s, when thrifts became traders and traders thrifts.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Looking into it a bit, Jamie found that the model used by Wall Street to price LEAPs, the Black-Scholes option pricing model,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Before Volcker’s speech, bonds had been conservative investments, into which investors put their savings when they didn’t fancy a gamble in the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Long Beach Savings was the first existing bank to adopt what was called the “originate and sell” model. This proved such a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“If you ever care to see how all the world’s most awful jokes spread, spend a day on a bond trading desk.… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The only inexplicable aspect of the process was that economic theory (which is, after all, what economics students were supposed to know)… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
In Wall Street now, you have to hide what you're doing. It's more fun when you don't have to do that. But… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
If you're the kind of kid who thinks that all that's important in life is making money, Wall Street is probably still… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The model used by Wall Street to price trillions of dollar's worth of derivatives thought of the financial world as an orderly,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The triple-A tranches all traded at one price, the triple-B tranches all traded at another, even though there were important differences from… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Back in July 2003, he’d written them a long essay on the causes and consequences of what he took to be a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“A big Wall Street bank’s biggest advantage was its access to vast amounts of cheap risk capital and, with that, its ability… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Because the lenders sold many—though not all—of the loans they made to other investors, in the form of mortgage bonds, the industry… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Take a typical three-hundred-million-dollar CMO. It would be divided into three tranches, or slices of a hundred million dollars each. Investors in… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The gist of Laszlo’s pitch for the equity department was this question: When you turn on your television at six-thirty and Dan… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The idea that it's smart to allow Wall Street firms, with this "too big to fail" imprimatur, to become hedge funds again… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“By early 2005 all the big Wall Street investment banks were deep into the subprime game. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Where to find the borrowers with high FICO scores? Here the Wall Street bond trading desks exploited another blind spot in the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“A credit default swap was confusing mainly because it wasn’t really a swap at all. It was an insurance policy, typically on… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“I have this theory," says Andy Stone, seated in his office at Prudential-Bache Securities. "Wall Street makes its best producers into managers.… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“On its surface, the booming market in side bets on subprime mortgage bonds seemed to be the financial equivalent of fantasy football:… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“There was more than one way to think about Mike Burry’s purchase of a billion dollars in credit default swaps. The first… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The new structure of the U.S. stock market had removed the big Wall Street banks from their historic, lucrative role as intermediary.… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Many thrifts layered a billion dollars of brand-new loans on top of their existing, disastrous hundred million dollars of old loss-making loans,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Both had trouble generating conviction of their own but no trouble at all reacting to what they viewed as the false conviction… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Wall Street is not being made a scapegoat for this crisis: they really did this. — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The creation of the mortgage bond market, a decade earlier, had extended Wall Street into a place it had never before been:… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
I didn't think one day something would happen that would bring me back to Wall Street to write what is essentially a… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“They had stumbled either upon a serious flaw in modern financial markets or into a great gambling run. Characteristically, they were not… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The markets in the long run are no doubt driven by fundamental economic laws—if the United States runs a persistent trade deficit,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The big Wall Street firms, seemingly so shrewd and self-interested, had somehow become the dumb money. The people who ran them did… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don't need to make smart decisions--if they can… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Crucial decisions are made, today as thousands of years ago, in terms of the intuitive guesses and preferences of a few men in positions… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“You saw someone who reminded you of you, and then you looked for the reasons why you liked him. The” — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“At other places management says, ‘Well, gee, fellas, do we really want to bet the ranch on this deal?’ Lewie was not only willing… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“BILLY WOULD SAY later that his wife left him because she was unnerved by his intensity—that she could even see it in his hands… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“The great thing about baseball players, from the point of view of personal hygiene, is how seldom they break a sweat.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share
There was but one question he left unasked, and it vibrated between his lines: if gross miscalculations of a person's value could occur on… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“The author refers to a player's affected nonchalance and comments he is, "too young to realize you are what you pretend to be.” — Michael Lewis Copy Share
A banking system is an act of faith: it survives only for as long as people believe it will. — Michael Lewis Copy Share
Some coaches believed they could judge a player's performance simply by watching it. In this they were deeply mistaken. The naked eye was an… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“No longer were the prices of ordinary mortgage bonds allowed to roam inefficiently, for they were now linked to the CMO market, in much… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“The difference between Strauss and Ranieri?” says one trader still at Salomon. “That’s easy. Strauss wouldn’t stoop to use the men’s room on the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“The only inexplicable aspect of the process was that economic theory (which is, after all, what economics students were supposed to know) served almost… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“It's not easy to stand apart from mass hysteria - to believe that most of what's in the financial news is wrong, to believe… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
“Someone out there was using the fact that stock market orders arrived at different times at different exchanges to front-run orders from one market… — Michael Lewis Copy Share
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