具体描述
内容简介
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama. 作者简介
Roger Lowenstein, author of the bestselling Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade, and wrote the Journal's stock market column "Heard on the Street" from 1989 to 1991 and the "Intrinsic Value" column from 1995 to 1997. He now writes a column in Smart Money magazine, and has written for The New York Times and The New Republic, among other publications. He has three children and lives in Westfield, New Jersey.
精彩书评
"This is a marvelous, unauthorized chronicle of the rise, fall, and re-emergence of Long-Term Capital Management, a private hedge fund that in September 1998 benefited from a Federal Reserve-orchestrated $3.6 billion bailout. Based primarily on interviews with key players from the six banks that participated in the rescue of the firm, Lowenstein, who previously wrote Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, presents a well-crafted, easy-to-follow text. Readers will better appreciate the inner workings of the firm; the nuances of the individual partners; primary differences among investing in stocks, bonds, and derivatives; the fallacy of the efficient market hypothesis; the impact of computers on financial trading; and the importance of moderation. Recommended for both academic and public libraries."
--DNorman B. Hutcherson, Kern Cty. Lib., Bakersfield, CA
迷失的指南针:华尔街的权力博弈与道德困境 书名: 《华尔街的迷雾:贪婪、失序与监管的拉锯战》 作者: 亚历山大·科尔文 (Alexander Corvin) 出版年份: 2018年 书籍类型: 深度调查报告与金融史分析 页数: 620页 --- 内容简介: 《华尔街的迷雾》并非聚焦于某一个特定危机的来龙去脉,而是以一种宏大而审慎的视角,剖析了自上世纪八十年代末期以来,美国金融市场结构性缺陷与监管哲学演变之间的复杂关系。本书的核心论点在于,金融业的创新速度——尤其是在衍生品和量化交易领域——始终超越了政府和监管机构的理解与控制能力,这种“认知滞后”是系统性风险持续累积的根本原因。 科尔文教授,一位在华尔街工作多年后转入顶尖智库进行研究的资深观察家,通过对数百份内部备忘录、未公开的听证会记录以及对关键行业参与者的深度访谈,构建了一幅关于华尔街权力运作的精细图景。他摒弃了简单地将金融危机归咎于“坏人”或“系统故障”的论调,而是深入挖掘了驱动金融精英行为的内在逻辑——一种在自由市场教条下被推崇至上的、对“效率”的极端追求。 第一部分:去监管化的理论基石与实践 本书的开篇追溯了里根时代至克林顿政府时期,金融自由化思潮如何从学术界渗透到政策制定核心。科尔文详细阐述了“理性预期理论”和“有效市场假说”在实际操作中被如何曲解和滥用,为金融机构绕开传统限制提供了理论上的“合法性”外衣。他尤其关注了影子银行体系的崛起,描述了商业银行、投资银行与非银行金融机构之间界限的模糊化过程。这不是一次突发的事件,而是一个漫长、系统性的去中心化和风险外包的过程。 书中详尽分析了美国证券交易委员会(SEC)和商品期货交易委员会(CFTC)在面对新金融工具(如复杂的担保债务凭证CDOs和信用违约互换CDS)时所表现出的“技术性无力”。科尔文指出,监管机构长期以来依赖行业自律的愿景,使得他们在关键的十年间错失了建立有效风险监控框架的最佳时机。他通过对比欧洲和亚洲在特定时期对衍生品市场的反应,突显了美国监管哲学的独特“乐观主义”色彩。 第二部分:量化革命与“黑箱”金融的诞生 本书用大量篇幅探讨了科技进步如何彻底重塑了华尔街的运作方式。科尔文将这一时期称为“算法的黎明”。他描述了高频交易(HFT)从边缘技术迅速转变为市场主导力量的过程。通过对几家主要的量化对冲基金的案例研究,揭示了这些机构如何利用计算优势,在毫秒级别上剥削市场结构中的微小不效率,从而积累巨额财富。 然而,这种高度依赖复杂数学模型的金融活动,带来了前所未有的不透明性。科尔文展示了当模型遭遇“黑天鹅”事件时,市场是如何在瞬间从有序变为集体恐慌的。他深入分析了“模型风险”——即模型本身的局限性和错误假设如何被放大为系统级风险。书中特别提到了“闪电崩盘”现象,这不是一次传统意义上的挤兑,而是算法之间相互反馈、自我强化的结果,凸显了人类对市场控制力的削弱。 第三部分:权力、游说与监管的回声 在第三部分,科尔文将焦点转向了华尔街与华盛顿之间的“共生关系”。他以详尽的资料揭露了金融机构如何通过不成比例的政治献金和“旋转门”效应,成功地塑造了有利于自身发展的监管环境。他并非简单指责腐败,而是分析了一种更深层次的“认知同化”——政策制定者在长期与行业精英的接触中,逐渐接受了金融机构的风险评估框架和经济模型,从而使得监管的初衷被稀释。 书中对几项关键的立法尝试进行了深入的“解剖分析”,比如在特定金融改革法案中,一些关键的衍生品清算条款是如何在最后一刻被削弱或推迟执行的。这些案例表明,即使在危机之后,华尔街的游说力量依然强大,能够有效“驯服”改革的锋芒,确保其核心盈利模式不受根本性挑战。 第四部分:从危机到新常态:未完成的修复 《华尔街的迷雾》的结论部分,对后危机时代的金融格局进行了冷静的审视。科尔文认为,尽管新的资本充足率要求和流动性缓冲措施在技术上加强了大型银行的体质,但系统性问题——尤其是“大而不能倒”的道德风险和日益集中的资产管理规模——并未得到根本解决。 他强调,金融创新永远不会停止。当前的主要风险已经从传统银行的过度杠杆,转向了科技金融(FinTech)和私人信贷市场的快速扩张。这些新领域,因其业务的隐蔽性和跨国操作的便利性,正在成为新的监管盲区。科尔文的最终警告是:如果不正视权力集中和信息不对称这一结构性难题,未来的市场动荡将以更难预测、更难干预的形式出现。 本书特点: 本书以其扎实的文献功底和严谨的逻辑推演,为读者提供了一个理解现代金融体系运作逻辑的必备框架。它不提供简单的“救赎故事”,而是描绘了一幅关于人类对复杂系统控制力的深刻反思。阅读本书,如同手持一份迷失的指南针,去探索一个由算法、游说和不断进化的风险模型所构筑的庞大迷宫。它适合对宏观经济学、金融史、政治经济学感兴趣的专业人士和严肃读者。