William d. cohan house of cards

His manager was protecting him from interference from the "compliance" officers of the company. It also appears that this manager of the two hedge funds was engaged in fraud to the extent that he clearly saw that the mortgage derivatives from the subprime market were riskier, he was much more dependent upon these securities than he was reporting to the investors.

William d. cohan house of cards: House of Cards: A Tale

This guy is apparrently in the courts on a couple of charges. Bear Stearns was clearly filled with some interesting characters and there are enough anecdotes from the discussions to give you a pretty good feeling for the types of salty guys they were. There are also the reports on the lifestyle that some of these guys were living and of course it is clear that those at the top had some pretty interesting lifestyles.

Some of these guys had like 5 houses and couple Ferrari's. The Ceo who was forced out just shortly before the company crashed had a summer routine where he would be helicoptered in the late afternoon on Thursdays to the golf course in new jersey for a quick afternoon round. At a cost of bucks each time, which I guess if you are worth a billion you can afford.

It is also clear that there were few people in the upper eschelons of the company who had a really firm grasp of the more complicated derivatives that were instrumental in blowing up the hedge funds. It becomes clear that the risks that they were running were not very well understood by all of those in the management. This of course is not necessarily very surprising, I have seen the same phenomenon in silicon valley managers understanding the risks of the technologies that they adopt.

According to the story, one of the problems was that the key derivatives expert had had his compensation reined in and so may not have been minding the store as carefully as previously when his hedge fund managers were roaming into dangerous territory. It appears that to some extent this is a story of not enough adult supervision and not enough checks and balances on a fund that was investing in some risky and complicated securites.

The Upper layers of management were not wartching it too closely, but part of that is that the returns had been quite strong for 40 months in a row and frankly he was misleading people in what he was investing in. The end of the book details the last 9 months of the collapse of the Hedgefunds up until the final 10 day liquidity crisis which ends up ending the company.

In this section there is information on the final weeks of Lehmann brothers giving the reader insight into the differences in that event and Bear Stearns. There is also some discussion of the perspective of the crisis from the point of view of the last Ceo of Bear Stearns. This view appears to me to be pretty good. The Author is a guy who has worked in this industry and he clearly communicates what the places are like.

He is also fairly transparent in his discussion of certain events. In a number of places he indicates that different participants view things a bit differently and he clearly indicates the different viewpoints on what happened. The author has clearly researched most of the trade press publications about Bear Stearns during this period and has had the active participation of a good number of the senior managers of Bear Stearns as interview subjects for the story that he maps out.

He has done an excellent job of mapping this one out. In summary I find this an extremely informative book on the Mortgage crisis as it hit Wall Street. You will understand much better the involvement of the Investment banks in this arena. You will understand very well what happened at Bear Stearns and to a much lesser extent Lehmann Brothers.

William d. cohan house of cards: House of Cards: A

However, be aware that this crisis involves many many different parts of the economy and therefore you will not understand in any detail what happened at say Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or Countrywide, these players in this debacle along with Congress and others like HUD are not at all discussed. This book focuses on Bear Stearns, whose collapse was pivotal and this book gives you a very good understanding of the dynamics of that, personalities, mistakes, personnel limitations, egos and all.

It adds much to the picture but the overall economic debacle that we are dealing with is broader than just Wall Street. Regardless this is a valuable and well done addition to the literature. Cohan is to be commended. Cohen's descriptions of the people, places and time-lines are both entertaining and informative without ever losing his way.

A lot has been written about these events in a very short space of time but no author has managed to capture the mood and the moment as well as Mr Cohen. A remarkable achievement given the short space of time between the events and the book's publication. Because the proverbial you-know-what did not really hit the fan until September of with the one week period that included the fall of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIGmany seem to forget that in March ofsix full months prior, Wall Street lost one of its true gem stones: the illustrious Bear Stearns.

Cohan's House of Cards is not intended to walk us through every nook and cranny of the housing crisis, or even the systemic mess that took place across Wall Street. This is a page play-by-play of the fall and rise of Bear Stearns in particular. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! After ten days, the bank no longer existed, its assets sold under duress to rival JPMorgan Chase.

William Cohan exposes the corporate arrogance, power struggles, and deadly combination of greed and inattention that led to the collapse not only of Bear Stearns but the very foundations of Wall Street. How it happened : ten days in March -- 1. The ultimate roach motel -- 2. The confidence game -- 3. The run on the bank -- 5. The armies of the night -- 6.

Feeding frenzy -- 7.

William d. cohan house of cards: William D. Cohan's superb and shocking

Total panic -- 8. The price of moral hazard? The Fed comes to the rescue after the battle is over -- Mooning at the wake -- Better World Books. Uploaded by Lotu Tii on June 17, Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon.

William d. cohan house of cards: William Cohan exposes the

Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. References [ edit ]. House of Cards by William D. ISBN Financial Times.

Retrieved William Cohan, the winner of the prize, was quick enough off the mark with House of Cardswhich documents the fall of Bear Stearns in springwhile David Wessel's In Fed We Trustan account of how Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, tackled the crisis, brings the story right up to this summer. Los Angeles Times. External links [ edit ].

Categories : Non-fiction books about the subprime mortgage crisis Books about stock traders Bear Stearns JPMorgan Chase Books about companies non-fiction books Business books Doubleday publisher books.