Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation...

Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors | Charles Gasparino | Top Pick for a Behind-the-Scenes Look at "Street" Games

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Blood on the Stree...

	Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors Charles Gasparino Free Press, 2005 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 52 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"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. "

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More background and wider perspective than Dan Reingold's book

I read this book after I read Dan Reingold's book, which is copyrighted 2006 while this is copyrighted 2005. It reaffirms a lot about the conflict of interests, sexing e-mails, and tying of research recommendations with admission into private schools, but covers the same issues in the Internet sector as well. This book made me realised that actually a lot of the details are in the papers, except that I missed most of it during that time because I was not paying attention to Wall Street. It reaffirms the feeling I had that stock investing is really dangerous for the small investors, as the big guys are clearly in this to milk as much out of the "fat tail" of small investors as much as possible. However, investing in mutual funds may not really be a solution either, since they are also at the mercy of whether the research report(s) they are relying on is truthful or not.

It also puts into perspective the political undercurrent going on behind the scene.

Finally, there is a quote in the Epilogue that sends a chill down my spine, "They always eat their own." Even though the Epilogue is short (308-317), the fact that it is still an interesting chapter is a credit to how good this book is.

Comparing Dan Reingold's book with this one, the former is clearly a vent of the frustration he had with not being able to compete with the supposed number one analyst in the telecom industry, whereas the latter offers a far wider perspective that just a two-person rivalry. I should have thought of it earlier - the difference between that of an analyst that is deep into a particular sector is far more narrorw-minded that that of a reporter.

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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.

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.

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Internet selling marketplace

Plenty of detail here in this book about the Internet IPO craze of the 90's and all the players involved.

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.

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