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Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
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Flash Boys (original 2014; edition 2014)

by Michael Lewis

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2,132737,474 (4.05)21
In this book the author argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets. A report on a high-tech predator stalking the equity markets, this book is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post-financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, they band together and set out to reform the financial markets. This they do by creating an exchange in which high-frequency trading, source of the most intractable problems, will have no advantage whatsoever. The characters are each completely different from what you think of when you think "Wall Street guy." Several have walked away from jobs in the financial sector that paid them millions of dollars a year. From their new vantage point they investigate the big banks, the world's stock exchanges, and high-frequency trading firms as they have never been investigated, and expose the many strange new ways that Wall Street generates profits. The author shines a light into the darkest corners of the financial world, where anyone in contact with the market, even a retirement account, is part of the story. But in the end, this is the story of people who have somehow preserved a moral sense in an environment where you don't get paid for that; they have perceived an institutionalized injustice and are willing to go to war to fix it.… (more)
Member:Eyejaybee
Title:Flash Boys
Authors:Michael Lewis
Info:Penguin (2014), Kindle Edition, 291 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:Non-Fiction, Finance, Money, Crime, Journalism, Wall Street, Bankers

Work Information

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis (2014)

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Showing 1-5 of 72 (next | show all)
I've read several Michael Lewis financial books and loved them but I was disappointed by this one. The explanations were confusing, he kept repeating things, providing a lot of detail that was of no consequence, etc. He also dropped in terms like "subversion" without explanations leaving the wrong impression for what they mean. ("Subversion" is just a source code control package and has nothing to do with subverting anything.) It made me wonder how much of the material was really over the author's head.

I appreciated some of his explanations that the banks, brokerages, and exchanges were largely unaware of what was going on. But his explanations were often puzzling themselves and I suppose that he just didn't have all the explanations or he lacked a full understanding himself.

It all added up to a book that was not a good read. It was too confusing, had too much irrelevant material, and was too long. (Yes, I read the whole thing.) Perhaps this is not entirely the author's fault. Where was his editor? His editor should have done a better job helping trim and focus the material and distill difficult financial discussion into understandable explanations and a coherent whole. ( )
  donwon | Jan 22, 2024 |
This novel does not have human interest/ character angle that some of Lewis's other books have had (specifically Money Ball and the Blind Side). It also struck me as a bit repetitive in parts. I liked learning about how HFT works and how some worked to combat it but it could have been covered as a magazine article or case study. ( )
  devilhoo | Jan 3, 2024 |
Great
  Dermot_Butler | Nov 8, 2023 |
Not Lewis' best, but better than most others writing CNF. ( )
  Parthurbook | Nov 6, 2023 |
A great book! Must read. Opened my eyes to a lot of things about the stock market. And the events are recent, so most of the people will be able to relate to it. ( )
  aashishrathi | Jul 1, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 72 (next | show all)
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Epigraph
A man got to have a code. - Omar Little
Dedication
For Jim Pastoriza Who has never missed an adventure
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(Introduction) I suppose this book started when I first heard the story of Sergey Aleynikof, the Russian computer programmer who had worked for Goldman Sachs and then, in the summer of 2009, after he'd quit his job, was arrested by the FBI and charged by the United States government with stealing Goldman Sachs's computer code.
By the summer of 2009 the line had a life of its own, and two thousand men were digging and boring the strange home it needed to survive.
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In this book the author argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets. A report on a high-tech predator stalking the equity markets, this book is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post-financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, they band together and set out to reform the financial markets. This they do by creating an exchange in which high-frequency trading, source of the most intractable problems, will have no advantage whatsoever. The characters are each completely different from what you think of when you think "Wall Street guy." Several have walked away from jobs in the financial sector that paid them millions of dollars a year. From their new vantage point they investigate the big banks, the world's stock exchanges, and high-frequency trading firms as they have never been investigated, and expose the many strange new ways that Wall Street generates profits. The author shines a light into the darkest corners of the financial world, where anyone in contact with the market, even a retirement account, is part of the story. But in the end, this is the story of people who have somehow preserved a moral sense in an environment where you don't get paid for that; they have perceived an institutionalized injustice and are willing to go to war to fix it.

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