Customer Reviews

Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book far surpasses the expectations set by its simple premise -- a series of interviews of an unnamed hedge fund manager who specialized in trading emerging market debt through the financial crisis of 2008. No secrets are revealed about the inner workings of the global financial system, and the factual content of the book can be found elsewhere. This book is great not because it explains a credit crunch, or how to trade bonds or manage portfolio risk (it doesn't even attempt to do these latter things), but because it provides an intelligent, funny, highly opinionated synthesis of far-reaching finance, economics, and even philosophy. Many readers will disagree with points made by the anonymous hedge fund manager who holds court in these pages, but I think any reader would benefit from the internal dialog with him we have while reading.

The end of the book, after the crisis is over, is not as compelling as the first part of the text. However, even the first 100 pages more than justifies the cost of the book and the time spent reading it.

I don't follow the news very much, just episodes of Daily Show that let me know the general state of the world. So I knew next to nothing about the causes and implications of the financial meltdown or the rationale of the bailout. I picked this book up because I liked the interview format and thought I could learn a little. It turned out to be an amazing read: it was fairly easy to understand, both the interviewer and interviewee were likable, and it gave me a lot of insight into the financial world. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand more about what happened with the economy, but find other, denser books too daunting.

This was a great book. Very informative from the perspective of a seemingly objective financial expert. It's a long interview conducted over a few years, so it makes it very easy to read. With the amount of info conveyed, as a non-finance guy, I did not find it to be overwhelmingly academic at all, even though I learned a tremendous amount of new information.

If I would have known that this was a book of edited transcripts of interviews I probably wouldn't have bought it; but I didn't and I did and I'm glad I did. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I have read a lot about the financial crisis but this book is a unique look at that crisis from the heart and mind of an insider who lived through it. Anonymous is not cigar chomping Neanderthal, Wall Street aristocrat or a nerdy math wizard. He is sort of a really smart everyman; a guy you'd like to have a beer with. So buy this book get in the hammock with a beer and enjoy your weekend.

This is a good book when combined with others. It can give the reader a good, intuitive introduction to how trading and markets work. If you read this book and no others, you'll know a little and have been entertained. If you go on from this book, you'll find it can serve as a good base for further learning. As someone with experience in the securities business, I enjoyed HFM's clarity of exposition, but didn't find him the brilliant chap the interviewer seems to believe he is. He's a smart guy, no doubt, and he thinks a lot about what he does, but let's not blow this out of perspective, folks. His thoughts on Lehman Bros, Bear,AIG and Madoff are particularly interesting. Not a classic, but a good exposition.

At first I thought this book would be a trading diary covering trades a hedge funds manager made in the severe bear market of 2008, but this book doesn't contain any information on trades. It's just a very long interview with a hedge funds manager (HFM) being questioned by the author of this book. The book certainly ain't bad, it was a good quick read and very informing on the downfall of the banks and the troubles back then.

The main benefit of this book is that everything is explained pretty clearly. If you're willing to do an effort to understand what caused the downfall of the banks 3 years ago then this book is one of the best reads. The HFM covers everything chronologically and how he experienced it (first Bear Stears, then Lehman Brothers, then AIG, ..). Most books on this subject fail at explaining the main causes of financial crisis.

All in all, recommended as a quick read.

As a Finance executive involved in mortgage trading I'm spending quite a bit of time reading books about the crash. While I was not subprime involved, my leverage investments did take heavy losses so when better to evaluate your decisions and what you should or should not have done and how could the decisions have been better. Based upon reviews I purchased this book. I would put it in about the middle of the pack of the books I have read on the financial crash.

The book is a series of interviews over time with an unnamed hedge fund pro. A very simplistic read, mainly because the interviewer was not a financial expert and quite often he asked for clarification of points discussed. This should be helpful for the nonfinance reader. But really, there's not a lot of new ground covered for me with the exception of more in depth views of hedge fund investing strategies. Based upon this discussion I purchased and read "More Money than God" which is a historical analysis of hedge funds. I enjoyed that read much more but must credit this book for spurring the subject.
Overall, a fine read. But not a masterpiece that moves you.

I wholly enjoyed this book. It's educational, entertaining, and somewhat nerve wracking once you sense how close we got to something like a complete meltdown. It helped me understand what the hell just happened. Should be required reading for all econ students.

read this book in one sitting, liked it a lot, couldnt put it down. The style of this guy's writing is pretty enjoyable, and you feel almost bad for the 'anonymous' hedge fund manager (until you realize that he made a ton of money from his hedge fund over his career) as things go from bad to worst. but since he's mostly an emerging market trader you dont blame him too much for missing the full scale of the crisis.

This is a much more amusing and accessible format for the whole banking crisis than the big books that the NYTimes likes to review.