Play Money [Hardcover]

Laura Pedersen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1991

Laura Pedersen, a young woman barely out of high school, describes how she found herself in the surreal, carnival-like atmosphere of the "pit," on the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange. Aged eighteen, Pedersen was learning the ropes where the real trading is done. Just a year later, she was trading millions of dollars' worth of options and futures and coping with the male-dominated world of The Pit. Daily she learned to live with brutal practical jokes, torn clothes, deafening noise, and nakedly aggressive behavior that is the essence of finance under combat conditions. By turns hilarious and frightening, Pedersen's account blows the lid off the Decade of Greed. Every day is profoundly nerve-racking, as she must make split-second decisions that could cost her company millions. In PLAY MONEY the reader experiences firsthand the panic and desperation following the crash of 1987. Pedersen also reveals the overheated manic mixture of greed, cunning, sex, cynicism, and compulsion that lies behind the market's orderly facade, and tells how she made her first million dollars before she was twenty-two. PLAY MONEY shows as never before how unwary investors stuffed money into a volcanic Cuisinart. It's shocking, unforgettable, and true. More info at www.LauraPedersenBooks.com KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review) PLAY MONEY: My Brief But Brilliant Career on Wall Street The sassy memoirs of a still-young woman who had a short and bittersweet but financially rewarding career as an index options trader at the American Stock Exchange. Having quite the University of Michigan after just one semester, Pedersen headed for Wall Street. Starting as an ASE clerk at age 18 in January 1984, she earned a partnership in a specialist firm (and an exchange membership) shortly after turning 20. By the time the author left the Amex late in 1989 (within days of the market’s second precipitous break in two years), her annual income was close to $500,000. Physically and mentally, however, she qualified as a basket case, with badly strained vocal cords, impaired hearing, jumpy vision, chronically sore feet, a wealth of vague anxieties, and an attention span that could most charitably be described as transient. Here, Pedersen (who pinched pennies to maximize her investment bankroll) offers some good yarns about the lessons learned by an Upstate New York lass while apartment-hunting in Manhattan. She also provides pointed commentary on casino capitalism during the Reagan era. At the heart of her narrative, though, are antic accounts of the manic goings-on in the ASE’S trading pits. In addition to making split-second judgment calls on contracts that could yield her employer substantial profits or losses, Pedersen had to cope with unsparing competition from male-chauvinist rivals (and their insensitive pranks), the nearly unbearable din of the trading floor, and other allied challenges. She nonetheless kept her wits and prevailed to the extent that she escaped with her life, comparatively good health, and a small fortune. A savvy insider’s vastly entertaining line on aspects of the money game. Pedersen is also author of GOING AWAY PARTY, BEGINNER'S LUCK, HEART'S DESIRE, THE BIG SHUFFLE, LAST CALL, THE SWEETEST HOURS, and BUFFALO GAL.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pedersen, who in 1984 at age 18 began her Wall Street career as an AMEX options clerk, here attributes her success as an index trader (she became a millionaire by age 22) to her ability to "scream loud, jump high, think fast and count without using her fingers." Along with a hilarious account of her personal adventures, this incisive, anecdotal narrative, written with freelancer Model, affords a front-line view of market operations and what it was like to risk vast sums daily under the physically hazardous conditions of the madhouse options trading floor during the heady days of the "Roaring Eighties." Now a traveling lecturer, Pederson claims that global electronic trading will soon replace floor brokers and traders.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Twenty-five-year-old Pedersen here recounts her five years' experience on the American Stock Exchange as an index options trader. By 22 she claims to have been a millionaire. By age 24 she quit because of the wear and tear on her voice and hearing. An example of her rapacious attitude: she crows that at age 13 during a blizzard she sold her own mother 50? canned corn for $3. What else does the reader learn? Not much about actual options trading, but a lot about options traders being prone to the same juvenile pranks ("one favorite pastime was pie throwing") and humor (rubber vomit) as any group. Those who enjoyed Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker ( LJ 9/1/89) might go for this female version. On the whole, though, these "memoirs" are too shallow to concern most readers.
- Alex Wenner, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (April 3, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517582279
• ISBN-13: 978-0517582275
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,153,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Pedersen writes for The New York Times and is the author of Play Money, Going Away Party, Beginner's Luck (chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection), Last Call, Heart's Desire, The Sweetest Hours, and The Big Shuffle. In 1994, President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman, and she writes for several wellknown comedians. Pedersen lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious But True Story, Only In America, January 13, 2004

By 

lorna vernhoff (Fort Wayne, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Play Money (Hardcover)

I am working my way backward through the Pedersen oeuvre, having just read LAST CALL, BEGINNER'S LUCK, and GOING AWAY PARTY. I thought this was going to be another novel, but SURPRISE, it is an account of Pedersen's adventures going to Wall Street back in 1983, the start of boom times. She was only 18 and coming from a small town in upstate New York, a self-admitted hick, unable to find the stock exchange on her third day of work because it was raining and the flag wasn't flying. The supervisor had never heard THAT excuse before. Anyway, Pedersen is as light-hearted and charming in her nonfiction as in the novels. She doesn't come off as being a child whiz kid, though I imagine you must be pretty smart to do what she did, but credits her phenomenal success more to being in the right place at the right time, getting up early, and loving the work, action, excitement. Her coworkers are unbelievable and highly entertaining in their practical jokes and bizarre priorities. For someone who has lived in Indiana her entire life (me), it was fun to read about leaving home for a big city right after high school graduation, something probably many of us dreamed of doing, but for whatever reason didn't. This book reminded me why American is such a great country -- not so much because a teenage girl of divorced working class parents from a former steel town can strike it rich in just a few years, but because the young woman was able to make the opportunity for herself, no matter what happened after that. Though I'm glad she took her money and ran, and am looking forward to the next novel, HEART'S DESIRE. HOWEVER, if she wants to write another nonfiction book, I'd be happy to go along for the ride. Pedersen has the great comic/storytelling gift of making getting up in the morning into something funny and interesting. I read an essay she wrote about growing up with her mother (a nurse) on the Internet and it is laugh-out-loud funny.

5.0 out of 5 stars Small town girl hits big city, March 4, 2004

By 

K. Ferguson (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Play Money (Hardcover)

Loved PLAY MONEY from start to finish. It moves as fast as the trading floor where Pedersen finds herself at the tender age of 18. Newly arrived in the Big Apple she takes life in the fast lanes mostly in stride, along with the crazy antics of her cohorts. These people and situations were made for a sitcom and I can't believe that one hasn't been made of it yet. You'll learn a little about the stock exchange and options trading but not so much that the stories ever get bogged down. A fun read for anyone who has ever been in the biz (I was a currency trader in the 90s) but also if your just looking to cheer along a determined young person trying to pull herself up by the proverbial bootstraps.

5.0 out of 5 stars FAST AND FUNNY, February 10, 2004

By 

Jamie Green (Kansas City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Play Money (Hardcover)

This is not a financial book, though it tells you just enough to enjoy and understand what's going on. It's much more like LIAR'S POKER in that you get all the funny anecdotes about traders and the fear and greed that drives them. Pedersen is the perfect person to tell the tale, newly arrive on the stock exchange from upstate New York at age 18. My Uncle works on the trading floor of the NYSE and since the advent of cell phones and better computers it's certainly a new era. Pedersen's book is wonderful as a historical account of how it was before all that. And her personal story of moving to the big city from a small town, without much money and only a high school diploma from a public school, and setting out to achieve the American Dream is entertaining as well. And also, I would think, an inspiration to all ambitious young people (seeing as she wasn't even a good math student!). I particularly enjoyed all the bets and contests the guys would start -- as if making and losing millions of dollars every few minutes wasn't enough excitement!