“For though there was no chance of persuading a pension fund manager looking to make a longer-term loan to buy a Freddie… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The U.S. stock market was now a class system, rooted in speed, of haves and have-nots. The haves paid for nanoseconds; the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The U.S. stock market was now a class system, rooted in speed, of haves and have-nots. The haves paid for nanoseconds; the… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Thus the only Goldman Sachs employee arrested by the FBI in the aftermath of a financial crisis Goldman had done so much… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“By the middle of 2011, roughly 30 percent of all stock market trades occurred off the public exchanges, most of them in… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“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… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The role had been spawned by the widespread belief that traders didn’t know how to talk to computer geeks and that computer… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“I’d thought it strange, after the financial crisis, in which Goldman had played such an important role, that the only Goldman Sachs… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
That was how a Salomon bond trader thought: He forgot whatever it was that he wanted to do for a minute and… — 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
“The U.S. stock market now trades inside black boxes, in heavily guarded buildings in New Jersey and Chicago. What goes on inside… — 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
“There are a lot of really crappy bonds in these CDOs,’” said Charlie. They didn’t realize yet that the bonds inside their… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“For that purpose, partly as the result of Ranieri’s persistent lobbying, two new facilities had sprung up in the federal government alongside… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Burry did not think investing could be reduced to a formula or learned from any one role model. The more he studied… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The orders resting on BATS were typically just the 100-share minimum required for an order to be at the front of any… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The same system that once gave us subprime mortgage collateralized debt obligations no investor could possibly truly understand now gave us stock… — 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
“The price volatility within each trading day in the U.S. stock market between 2010 and 2013 was nearly 40 percent higher than… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“The simple reason Goldman wasn’t making much of the big money now being made in the stock market was that the stock… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
Incredibly, at this critical juncture in financial history, after which so much changed so quickly, the only constraint in the subprime mortgage… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
You could argue the banks are much better capitalised than they were going into the crisis, and everyone's in a much more… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Someone out there was using the fact that stock market orders arrived at different times at different exchanges to front-run orders from… — 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
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
“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
“No longer were the prices of ordinary mortgage bonds allowed to roam inefficiently, for they were now linked to the CMO market,… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Who do you work for? That question haunted salesmen. Whenever a trader screwed a customer and the salesman became upset, the trader… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“Dark pools were another rogue spawn of the new financial marketplace. Private stock exchanges, run by the big brokers, they were not… — Michael Lewis Copy Share Image
“When Steve Eisman stumbled into this new, rapidly growing industry of specialty finance, the mortgage bond was about to be put to… — 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
Yet another hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: you have a dog, and I have a cat. We… — 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
