Traders, Guns and Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives Revised edition
- By Satyajit Das
- Published Jul 7, 2010 by FT Press.
- Copyright 2010
- Pages: 384
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-273-73196-3
- ISBN-13: 978-0-273-73196-2
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Product Author Bios
Satyajit Das is a leading international authority in the area of financial derivatives and treasury management. He was the treasurer for the TNT Group on Australia for six years. Prior to this he worked in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Citicorp Investment Bank and Merrill Lynch Capital Markets. He is the author of Swap Financing and has published widely on financial derivatives, corporate finance, treasury and risk management. He has presented seminars on financial derivatives and treasury management/corporate finance all over the world.
Traders Guns and Money is a wickedly comic exposé of the culture, games and pure deceptions played out every day in trading rooms around the world. And played out with other people’s money.
A sensational insider’s view of the business of trading and marketing derivatives, this revised edition explains the frighteningly central role that derivatives and financial products played in the global financial crisis.
This worldwide bestseller reveals the truth about derivatives: those financial tools memorably described by Warren Buffett as ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’. Traders, Guns and Money will introduce you to the players and the practices and reveals how the real money is made and lost.
The global financial crisis took almost everyone by surprise and even now new problems keep appearing and solutions continue to be elusive. In the original version of Traders, Guns and Money, Satyajit Das provided a highly prescient insight into the structure and risk of the world financial system exposing the problems that are becoming readily apparent. In a 2006 speech – The Coming Credit Crash – Das argued that: "an informed analysis … shows that risk is not better spread but more leveraged and (arguably) more concentrated…. This does not improve the overall stability and security of the financial system but exposes it to increased risk of a "crash".
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62 of 63 people found the following review helpful
Required reading for finance majors, By Joe Kolman (Jackson Heights, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives (Paperback)
This is not another journalist musing on the financial world. This is not an academic explanation of how financial instruments work. It's something else entirely -- a rare inside glimpse into the world of derivatives by a literate professional who's been a handshake away (or closer) from the major events in the market. Das leavens a series of technical discussions about particular strategies with more entertaining glimpses into the culture the drives the deals. Although I have bones to pick with the book's episodic structure, I can't think of a better way to get a crash course in how the capital markets really work.
88 of 93 people found the following review helpful
The starting point to the world of derivatives, By
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This review is from: Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives (Paperback)
"Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives" great subtitle and the author really delivers. I love books on finance. Possibly stemming from being dropped on my head as a child. Some are pretty brutal to read but this one is as entertaining as it is educational.I was familiar with some derivatives like futures contracts and options, before reading this book. Now derivatives like CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligations), CCO (Commodity Collateralized Obligations), currency swaps, interest rate swaps, or even inverse floaters make sense to me. Obviously I am far from being an expert on any of these, but after reading this book I can now understand why Warren Buffet called derivatives "Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction". The author does a great job educating you in story-like fashion. The book told of numerous investors that ended up getting screwed by some pretty good salespeople at different dealer firms. Buyer beware comes to mind time and... Read more
66 of 74 people found the following review helpful
A double agent's account of his life as a spy, By
This review is from: Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives (Paperback)
As a derivatives trader I've seen many of my colleagues who just enter the field paying hundreds of dollars for thousands of pages of Mr. Das highly unreadable and stupefying compendiums on the subject of structured products. It is impossible to imagine a more serious and devote approach to derivatives than that exuding from his technical volumes. In comparison this new book feels like a gush of fresh air and while demystifying and ridiculing what used to be his bread and butter Mr. Das may look a bit cynical it is an honest book full of interesting and plausible examples and stories. For novices it can be very educational and for experts quite entertaining. It is like a memoir of a spy who turned out to be a double agent on his lifetime in secret services. When a guy knows so much who cares what side he was serving on?
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Introduction to the paperback edition
1. Financial WMDs - derivatives demagoguery
2. Beautiful Lies - the 'sell' side
3. True Lies - the 'buy' side
4. Show Me The Money - greed lost and regained
5. The Perfect Storm - risk mismanagement by the numbers
6. Super Models - derivatives algorithms
7. Games Without Frontiers - the inverse world of structured products
8. Share and Share Alike - derivative inequity
9. Credit Where Credit Is Due - fun with CDS and CDO
Afterword – Credit Crunch – The New Known Known of Financial Markets
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