Stock-market

This is a terrific story about the intersection of needs and desires between criminals, Louis Pasciuto et al, and their victims. It rings true in every aspect. And, this I say after spending a career in wall street as a stock broker, albeit one who worked for reputable brokerage houses. A part of my business career also put me in contact with people who used these kind of chop shops to promote stocks whose ascendance benefitted greatly those on the inside of the game. Yes, trashy behavior by trashy people, but one should not lose sight of those in government and other societal institutions who perpetrate even larger frauds on the public; the ponzi scheme aspects of the social security system come to mind along with the recent problems the catholic church has experienced with Gay priests. Add to this the recent problems of financial fraud in the Washington DC teachers union, committed against its dues paying members, along with the recent insider dealings of the Board members of United Labor Life Insurance company, a union owned entity, where insider actions led to a breach of their fiduciary duties, in a major way, and it becomes abundantly evident that corruption knows no one source.

In my travels I also learned that the SEC and other regulatory bodies, while having many dedicated and honest people, often let larger crimes go unmolested while restricting themselves to smaller fish that they "can fry" within their budgets. That is they often pursue the "honest guys" who make administrative mistakes while letting the larger frauds continue i.e. the egregious accounting scandal at WorldCom perpetrated by Bernie Ebbers and his minions. Where was the oversight?

A positive for "Born to Steal" is that it's darkly funny and easy to read, and will receive wider exposure by being made into a successful movie. In this vein the more investors can learn about stock fraud the better. I would council everyone to read Manuel Asensio's, "Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets."

Also, the tendency for readers and reviewers with a preconceived mindset to see "corporate greed" behind every illegal action speaks clearly to the anomaly of the human condition; that on the one hand most wish to see themselves as morally virtuous while retaining an unquestioned capacity for self deception. Furthermore, it could be averred that just about everyone has a price when it comes to their complicity in a deal where "something for nothing" seems in the offing. These subsets of the most human of conditions do not restrict themselves to corporations, big business or wall street. One who holds to that notion just hasn't availed themselves of the vast trove of historical data and anecdote which would expose this self-contradiction.

A good read for the summer!

I'm in the investment business but this book amazed even me. This is a story of a Staten Island teenager who signs on at a chop shop set up to bilk customers of their money. While poorly educated, Louis Pasciuto finds he has a knack for selling and can easily talk these people in to investing with him. But since this is a scam where the brokers make massive money and the customers lose, it's hardly investing at all.

Giving an uneducated 20-year-old massive money is dangerous. As he doesn't trust banks, he develops a better use of him money, spend it. Spend it on toys, women, trips, and drugs until eventually his monthly living expenses are so high he has money troubles that end with a mafia guy entering his life for a monthly taste. Now that's a whole other problem.

Louis Pasciuto's personal history is a perfect overlay for a demonstration of how the mafia infiltrated the investment business. Stories of mafia guys coming in and slapping their brokers around for money are unsettling at best. As always, this doesn't end happily.

I strongly recommend this book for an entertaining educational read of what can go wrong in the investment world. For further info on this subject, see the DVD, Boiler Room with Ben Affleck for another perspective of this 1990s phonemen. Although starting a little slow, once you are engaged in reading this book you cannot put it down.

Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PUT IT DOWN!!!!! I took this book to the beach during the July 4th weekend and made the mistake of starting to read it in the afternoon. There I was as the sun was setting at 8, and I was still reading it. Everyone was gone and I was squinting as the sun went down. That's how electrifying this book is.

Louis Pasciuto is a parochial school kid from Staten Island who has a slight character-development issue: He steals. He stole when he was a small child and as a teenager he found just the place to practice his craft. Wall Street beckoned, in the form of a well-groomed stock scammer named Roy Ageloff.

Such is the setup for one of the most readable stories that have come down the pike in a long time. Weiss's portrayal of the world of Wall Street and the Mafia is extraordinarily revealing. I heard this is going to be a movie and I can see why.

I don't want to give away any of the plot, as this is one of those books that you read with your hand on the page to keep from letting your eyes wandering down to see what is happening in the future. It was an education on the subject of Wall Street, and I came away from reading this book with a wealth of education that I hope will make me into a smarter investor.

One thing about this book that is surprising is how entertaining and funny it is. You wouldn't expect that from a book about Wall Street or the Mafia. But Weiss has extraordinary comic sense and he brings out the irony in some characters who are at once loathsome and fascinating. He also makes some sharp observations on the abysmal failure of Wall Street regulation and the moronic character of so much that has been written about the Mob.

Born to Steal is a winner in every respect.

This book is one of a kind! It is the first book I've read that speaks the truth about the perils of investing in the stock market. The suggestions are clear, sensible and a must for anyone who isn't buying into the old worn out advice that no longer works in todays environment.

It seems that all the books on low risk investing emphasize picking good companies or funds and keeping them for a long period of time. Blind Faith is different.

I'd love to be stress or worry free but traditional Cd's and money markets pay so little and I certainly don't believe that corporate America has cleaned up its act. This book taught me another investment strategy and discussed in detail investments that I never heard of before like market-linked CDs.

I enjoyed the authors cynical approach and found the book to be entertaining as well as enlightening.

Finally, a book that speaks to concerns that I've had about investing since I read my first investment book but that no one seems to talk about.

The author covers topics that are taboo in most investment texts, such as how the investment industry is rigged against the individual investor (corporate structure, taxes, investment banks, government regulation, etc.), and what you can do to protect yourself from market risk. Diversification doesn't help when the whole market collapses after a catastrophic event like 9-11 or in a deep recession.

If you want to take advantage of up markets and hold onto your gains in down markets, then read this book.

as I am, then you'll learn a great deal from "Bleeding Bull". I lost money in the stock market last year and this book has begun to open my eyes to the games played on naive investors like myself. The writer's style is clear and lively, and he gives many examples of Wall Street's tricks. A real eye opener!

In Bleeding Bull: The Stock Market Bubble And The American Middle Class, Vladimir Sarkoff reveals the role of Wall Street brokerages, the Feds, the media, and the ordinary, unsophisticated investor in the creation of the stock market bubble of the 90s and the democratization of stock ownership during that turbulent decade. An insightful and sardonic writer, Sarkoff's focus on the aftermath of the stock bubble bursting is as insightful as it is revealing. Of special note is Sarkoff's warnings that the next bubble might be forming. Vladimir Sarkoff's Bleeding Bull is highly recommended reading for anyone contemplating investing in the market or who has already engaged in the development of an investment portfolio.

Former Wall Street Journal writer and current financial communications consultant Tim Metz takes you up to and through the stock market crash of October 19 and 20, 1987, by looking into the minds of eyewitnesses and participants closest to the event. He introduces you to specialists on the NYSE, traders in the Chicago pits, government officials who monitor the country's finances, and exchange officers who have responsibility to oversee securities trading, all who played a part in what happened.

Although the blame for the mania leading up to the crash, and the crash itself, can be spread around to many contributing factors, especially portfolio insurance (a dumb idea) and program trading (index arbitrage), one clear hero emerges in the person of NYSE chairman John Phelan. Metz assigns him prime responsibility for having the foresight and stamina to keep the exchange open in the face of incredible pressure to close it by practically all others concerned. This brave act probably prevented a worse panic and the resulting loss of confidence in markets in the future.
The main point of Metz's investigation centers around the "second" panic of mid-morning Tuesday, October 20. I was a member of the Pacific Stock Exchange at the time, and Metz is correct in stating that as the market began to roll over after a strong opening, professionals became transfixed with fear that maybe we were really beginning to see the wheels come off for good. As Fred Sanford would have said, "This is the big one, Elizabeth!" We had survived the expected Monday "crash," and Tuesday should have seen some sensibility returning to the action, especially with the Dow having fallen some 37% from 2700 to support at around 1900. But the strong opening quickly gave way to new waves of selling that seemed to have no end. Even those of us who had begun the week short were deluged with so many sell orders that we quickly became net long...and net losers.
The Merc's S&P pit halted trading, as did many Dow stocks in NY. Then, miraculously, out of nowhere, the MMI pit on the CBOT caught a bid. Prices recovered. And that was the bottom - 12:30 in NY, 11:30 in Chicago, 9:30 in San Francisco. Metz implies that "manipulation" (government ?) may have had a hand in the turn, as have many other commentators since then. But it may just as well have been Adam Smith's unseen hand stepping into the momentary void vacated by sold-out sellers. We'll probably never know for sure. Whatever it was, it saved the day. As Metz aptly points out, the market is as much a psychological creature as it is a function of supply and demand, and a heroic gesture at the right moment can turn the tide of battle.
The book is laid out like a shipwreck disaster movie, which begins by introducing a representative cross-section of passengers and crew, then follows them as imminent danger eventually engulfs everyone's lives. Who will survive and who will perish?
It's a good read. But the real enjoyment comes at the end when you realize that so many people you've been following and care about worked in cooperation to keep the market afloat, and that critical decisions made under intense pressure preserved the system we have today.
The market treaded water for the next few years as it repaired the damage, then took off on an eight-year 9800-point Dow rally that would have never been possible except for the brave actions by the people who took charge to preserve the integrity of the market when it was under its most frightening assault.

THE BOOK IS WELL DOCUMENTED AND EASY TO FOLLOW I'D LIKE TO KNOW IS HE STILL ON THE AIR AND WHER