Books on Finance

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

The best investment guide money can buy, with over 1.5 million copies sold, now fully revised and updated.

In today’s daunting investment landscape, the need for Burton G. Malkiel’s reassuring, authoritative, and perennially best-selling guide to investing is stronger than ever. A Random Walk Down Wall Street has long been established as the first book to purchase when starting a portfolio. This new edition features fresh material on exchange-traded funds and investment opportunities in emerging markets; a brand-new chapter on “smart beta” funds, the newest marketing gimmick of the investment management industry; and a new supplement that tackles the increasingly complex world of derivatives.


Against The Gods

In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today.

 

Monkey Business

They Hit "The Street." Forget what you've read, forget what you've heard, forget what you've been taught. Monkey Business pulls off Wall Street's suspenders and gives the reader the inside skinny on real life at an investment bank, where the promised land is always one more twenty-hour workday and another lap dance away. "The Street" Hit Back. Fresh out of Wharton and Harvard business schools, John Rolfe and Peter Troob ran willingly into the open arms of investment bank giant Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette. They had signed on as foot soldiers in a white-collar army of overworked and frustrated lemmings furiously trying to spin straw into gold. They escaped with the remnants of their sanity-and, ultimately, this book. Uncensored,

 

The Business of Investment Banking

A comprehensive overview of investment banking for professionals and students

The investment banking industry has changed dramatically since the 2008 financial crisis. Three of the top five investment banks in the United States have disappeared, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have converted to commercial banking charters. This Third Edition of The Business of Investment Banking explains the changes and discusses new opportunities for students and professionals seeking to advance their careers in this intensely competitive field.

The recent financial regulation overhaul, including the Dodd-Frank legislation, is changing what investment banks do and how they do it, while the Volcker rule has shaken up trading desks everywhere.

  • This new edition updates investment banking industry shifts in practices, trends, regulations, and statistics

  • Includes new chapters on investment banking in BRIC countries, as Brazil, Russia, India, and China now account for a quarter of the global economy

  • Explains the shift in the listing of securities away from New York to various financial centers around the world, and how major exchanges compete for the same business

This new edition, reflecting the current state of the investment banking industry, arrives in time to better serve professionals wanting to advance their careers and students just beginning theirs.

 

Investment Banking

In the constantly evolving world of finance, a solid technical foundation is an essential tool for success. Due to the fast-paced nature of this world, however, no one has been able to take the time to properly codify the lifeblood of the corporate financier's work--namely, valuation. Rosenbaum and Pearl have responded to this need by writing the book that they wish had existed when they were trying to break into Wall Street.

Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions, Second Edition is a highly accessible and authoritative book that focuses on the primary valuation methodologies currently used on Wall Street--comparable companies, precedent transactions, DCF, and LBO analysis--as well as M&A analysis. These methodologies are used to determine valuation for public and private companies within the context of M&A transactions, LBOs, IPOs, restructurings, and investment decisions. Using a step-by-step how-to approach for each methodology, the authors build a chronological knowledge base and define key terms, financial concepts, and processes throughout the book. They also provide a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of LBOs and an organized M&A sale process, as well as merger consequences analysis.

In the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing credit crunch, the world of finance is returning to the fundamentals of valuation and critical due diligence for M&A, capital markets, and investment opportunities.. This involves the use of more realistic assumptions governing approach to risk as well as a wide range of value drivers. While valuation has always involved a great deal of "art" in addition to time-tested "science," the artistry is perpetually evolving in accordance with market developments and conditions. As a result, Rosenbaum and Pearl have updated the widely adopted first edition of their book with respect to both technical valuation fundamentals as well as practical judgment skills and perspective. The authors have also added a comprehensive and highly technical chapter on buy-side M&A analysis.

Furthermore, the authors address the importance of rigorous analysis based on trusted and attributable data sources. In this book, they highlight several datasets and investment banking tools from Bloomberg, a leading provider of business and financial data, news, research, and analytics.

 

Barbarians At The Gate

The fight to control RJR Nabisco during October and November of 1988 was more than just the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Marked by brazen displays of ego not seen in American business for decades, it became the high point of a new gilded age, and its repercussions are still being felt. The ultimate story of greed and glory, Barbarians at the Gate is the gripping account of these two frenzied months, of deal makers and publicity flaks, of an old-line industrial powerhouse that became the victim of the ruthless and rapacious style of finance in the 1980s. Written with the bravado of a novel and researched with the diligence of a sweeping cultural history, here is the unforgettable story of the takeover in all its brutality.

 

Blood On The Street

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.

 

Den of Thieves

A number one best seller from coast to coast, Den of Thieves tells, in masterfully reported detail, the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice.

Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the biggest names on Wall Street - Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine - created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions - until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America's most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice.

Based on secret grand jury transcripts, interviews, and actual trading records, and containing explosive new revelations about Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky written especially for this new edition, Den of Thieves weaves all the facts into an unforgettable narrative - a portrait of human nature, big business, and crime of unparalleled proportions.

 

Heard On The Street

THIS IS A MUST READ! It is the first and the original book of quantitative questions from finance job interviews. Painstakingly revised over 23 years and 19 editions, Heard on The Street has been shaped by feedback from many hundreds of readers. With well over 50,000 copies in print, its readership is unmatched by any competing book. The revised 19th edition contains 226 quantitative questions collected from actual job interviews in investment banking, investment management, and options trading. The interviewers use the same questions year-after-year, and here they are with detailed solutions! This edition also includes 210 non-quantitative actual interview questions, giving a total of more than 435 actual finance job interview questions. There is also a recently revised section on interview technique based on Dr. Crack's experiences interviewing candidates and also based on feedback from interviewers worldwide. The quant questions cover pure quant/logic, financial economics, derivatives, and statistics. They come from all types of interviews (corporate finance, sales and trading, quant research, etc.), and from all levels of interviews (undergraduate, MS, MBA, PhD). 

 

My Life As A Quant

In My Life as a Quant, Emanuel Derman relives his exciting journey as one of the first high-energy particle physicists to migrate to Wall Street. Page by page, Derman details his adventures in this field—analyzing the incompatible personas of traders and quants, and discussing the dissimilar nature of knowledge in physics and finance. Throughout this tale, he also reflects on the appropriate way to apply the refined methods of physics to the hurly-burly world of markets.

 

The Big Short

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

 

Boomerang

The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.

Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.

 

The New New Thing

In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis set out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world’s most important technology entrepreneur. He found this in Jim Clark, a man whose achievements include the founding of three separate billion-dollar companies. Lewis also found much more, and the result―the best-selling book The New New Thing―is an ingeniously conceived history of the Internet revolution.

 

The Smartest Guys In The Room

The Enron scandal brought down one of the most admired companies of the 1990s. Countless books and articles were written about it, but only The Smartest Guys in the Room holds up a decade later as the definitive narrative. For this tenth anniversary edition, McLean and Elkind have revisited the fall of Enron and its aftermath, in a new chapter that asks why Enron still matters. They also reveal the fates of the key players in the scandal.

 

The World Is Flat

"One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way, and Mr. Friedman certainly succeeds in that goal," the Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in The New York Times reviewing The World Is Flat in 2005. In this new edition, Thomas L. Friedman includes fresh stories and insights to help us understand the flattening of the world. Weaving new information into his overall thesis, and answering the questions he has been most frequently asked by parents across the country, this third edition also includes two new chapters--on how to be a political activist and social entrepreneur in a flat world; and on the more troubling question of how to manage our reputations and privacy in a world where we are all becoming publishers and public figures.

The World Is Flat 3.0 is an essential update on globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks--environmental, social, and political, powerfully illuminated by the Pulitzer Prize--winning author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree.