The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How To Prevent Them in the Future, [Kindle Edition]

John Authers (Author), Mohamed A. El-Erian (Foreword)

Book Description

Are we barreling toward another massive global financial catastrophe?

 

How can so many bubbles form all at once? Why are so many “disconnected” markets now capable of collapsing in unison? In this remarkably readable book, award-winning Financial Times columnist John Authers takes on these critical questions and offers deeply sobering answers.

 

Authers reveals how the first truly global super bubble was inflated—and might now be inflating again. He illuminates the multiple roots of repeated financial crises: a massive shift in investing power from individuals to big institutions; the migration of key decisions from banks to capital markets; the wholesale financialization of many asset classes; and fundamental failures of both theory and policy.

 

The Fearful Rise of Markets presents a truly global view, avoiding oversimplifications and ideology as it outlines how we got here and where we stand. Even more valuable, it offers realistic solutions—for decision-makers who want to prevent disaster and investors who want to survive it.

• The herd grows ever larger—and more dangerous
  How institutional investing, indexing, and efficient markets theory promote herding
• Cheap money and irrational exuberance
  Super fuel for super bubbles
• Too big to fail: the whole story of moral hazard
  Banks, hedge funds, and beyond
• Danger signs of the next bubble
  Forex, equity, credit, and commodity markets move once more in alignment

Editorial Reviews

Review

As seen on C-Span Book TV, CNBC Street Signs, and in the Financial T imes , The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Motley Fool  and The Globe and Mail .

 

“ Authers has the curriculum vitae and the confidence to go where no other author has thus far been . His goal … is to make understandable why financial markets failed, how investors should protect themselves and what national authorities should do to correct some of the problems. His mission is happily met.”   - Financial Times

Carmen M Reinhart, co-author with Kenneth S Rogoff of ‘This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly’

 

“This new book is a must-read for every investor....I'd urge anyone with any interest in investing to read it as soon as possible. It may well stop you losing your shirt in the next meltdown!”  Cliff D’Arcy, The Motley Fool

About the Author

John Authers, investment editor for the Financial Times, serves as its main commentator on international markets. In this role, he has become one of the world’s most influential financial journalists, with bylined columns on display pages of Financial Times five days a week. He will soon take over as the head of the Financial Times’ flagship Lex column.

 

Authers speaks worldwide and appears frequently on major U.S. and global media, including the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS. He was recently honored by the State Street Institutional Press Awards as the UK’s Investment Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the collapse of confidence in investment theory.

 

His book, The Victim’s Fortune, coauthored with Richard Wolffe, earned him the prestigious Best of Knight-Bagehot Award.

 

Authers lives and works in New York with his wife Sara Silver, also a financial journalist, and their three children.

 

Product Details

• File Size: 843 KB
• Print Length: 256 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0137072996
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (April 6, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003B0W1VM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,255 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #32 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing > Economics > Microeconomics
  • #86 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing > Economics > International

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy Reading, with a Good Amount of Insightful Analysis. June 8, 2010

By AdamSmythe

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

My first impression of The Fearful Rise of Markets--apart from asking myself just how many books concerning the recent economic and market turmoil have been written in the last 12 months--is that this is a very fast and easy read. There are about two dozen short chapters, each averaging six or seven pages, with each chapter followed by very short, bulleted summary points. (Even if you didn't realize the author, John Authers, is the investments editor of the Financial Times, you'd soon guess that he is used to writing short blurbs on a variety of economic and investment topics.) Frankly, having read enough market meltdown books in the last several months, I was prepared to be unimpressed with this book. It turns out, however, I am impressed. Although the book does not plow a lot of new ground, it does cover many topics that are important to an understanding of the interconnectedness of markets (and the world economy). Although your reaction to this book may be different than mine, more than anything else I took away an appreciation of the way in which Authers helps pound in the observation that historical correlations among economic variables are apt to change (sometimes dramatically) when large numbers of market participants behave as if these historical correlations are set in concrete. Thus, for example, the widespread acceptance of indexing can help markets become progressively less efficient. Think about that for a bit.

Without describing all two dozen chapters, here are some of the topics (besides indexing) the book addresses: How money markets disintermediated banks, the role of junk bonds, the "oil standard," carry trades and their effects, the impact of increasingly professionally dominated investment markets (e.g...., herd behavior and "closet indexing"), reflexive markets, the limits of diversification, quant trading, and modern-day bank runs.

The author's analysis is pretty good, actually, and given some of the prominent theoreticians and practitioners he consulted in preparing the articles (sorry, chapters) in this book, that's understandable. People like Robert Arnott, Benoit Mandelbrot, Michael Mauboussin and Jeremy Siegel, for example. These guys have written some very interesting material on market behavior. (Two of my favorites are Mandelbrot's "The Misbehavior of Markets" and Mauboussin's "Think Twice.")

In short, you could read this book is just a few sittings, or you could digest one or two chapters at a time if you are pushed for time. Either way, it covers a lot of ground, can be easily understood by most readers, and delivers some important analysis. If you are looking for a good summary of many of the important developments in markets over recent decades (with an emphasis on the last 10 years and the recent market turmoil), I'd say this is a very fine choice. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Plain English August 23, 2010

By galton

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you are an investor who is looking for answers to how we got into the mess we are in, and better yet what the future may look like, this is the book for you. John Authers has done the best job I've seen of explaining how and why the latest financial crisis occurred. His writing style is very concise and extremely easy to understand. Even better, I think he has put out there enough knowledge and ideas, so that the investor will understand what forces are moving the markets and the implications for the future. Read this book, then reevaluate your own investment strategies and plans for the future.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview, for the layman, as to why markets have become so unstable recently May 21, 2011

By Yoda

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The author, John Authers, has been a financial correspondent for the Financial Times, one of the world's leading (if not leading) financial newspapers, for 20 some years. As such he is qualified to present his views both from the perspectives of his strong knowledge of financial markets as well as his very eloquent skills as a writer. It should be stressed, however, that the intended audience for this book is not professional in nature (i.e., academics, financial experts, etc.) but the layman. As such it is simply written and the views presented are not very complex or beyond what those working in the field would not be expected to know.

Authers posits that there have been a number of factors that have made financial markets more volatile since the late 1990s until today (as opposed to the end of World War 2 until the late 1980s). The most important of these have been greater accumulation of financial resources into the hands of "financial professionals (i.e., fund managers)" as to individual investors (after world war 2, for example, over 90% of investment funds were held by individual investors as opposed to fund managers - today the figure is more like a third), the accumulation of wealth into focal points consisting of index funds, the rise of money markets, the oil replacing the gold standard, the rise of emerging markets, the rise of junk funds, foreign exchange rising as another "asset", the rise of the carry trade, increasing bank concentration, the rise of hedge funds, the rise of the BRICs and commodities as another investment asset. Each of these is discussed in terms the layman can understand.

The accumulation of the financial assets has facilitated herd behavior and hence has increased cyclicality.... The rise of index funds has caused financial assets to become more concentrated around focal points such as S&P 500 stocks hence decreasing diversity in investment funds. In addition, the rise of these funds has further lead to herd behavior as it forces the fund managers to compete primarily on benchmarks relative to each other. This, according to Authers, leads to more "herd" behavior as any deviation from fund returns from the benchmark norm leads to fund manager unemployment. Money market funds have lead to more market risk as they are not guaranteed and, even worse, portray an image of being so. Emerging funds have lead to more investment in more volatile and cyclical economies. Junk funds have also lead to more investment in similarly characterized markets. Foreign exchange and commodity investment opportunities have also lead to investment funds entering a very volatile investment class. Increasing banking concentration has lead to moral hazard in that banks have become large enough to not be permitted by the government to fail. Hence they, too, can take more risk than would otherwise be prudent. In addition, all asset classes have become more closely correlated with each other. This makes diversification much more difficult if not impossible. In short, risk today in financial markets is considerably greater than it has been for most of the Post War period. Even worse, many of the traditional risk reduction strategies such as portfolio diversification are not as effective as they once were due to greater correlation among asset classes. All and all, risk today is much higher than it has been with investors being less able to mitigate it.

The book is slightly weak in the areas in its recommendations regarding how to prevent or mitigate future meltdowns. This is of some importance as the book's full title is "The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How to Prevent them in the Future". This is the reason this reviewers gives this book only 4 stars instead of 5. Some of Auther's ideas are quite good. For example, he recommends that banks should be forced to hold some proportion of housing CDOs they sell. This would lead, in his opinion, to an improvement in the quality of these products in the markets. Most of Auther's other ideas, however, do not seem practically feasible. For example, increasing bank reserves would lead an outflow of capital from those banks and nations with the higher capital requirements to those with lower. For a more comprehensive discussion of mitigation strategies, this reviewer recommends "Reforming U.S. Financial Markets: Reflections Before and Beyond Dodd-Frank (Alvin Hansen Symposium on Public Policy at Harvard University)". This contains a transcript of discussions held amongst leading academicians on the topic (i.e., Schiller).

Hence the reader comes out after reading the book, very justifiably, with the view that we now (and in the future) will be facing much greater market risk with little in the way of mitigation strategies. The message for the investor is clear: a greater share of one's investment portfolio in relatively lower risk and lower yielding investments such as high grade bonds. Read more ›

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!! May 26, 2010

By bookworm3152

Format:Hardcover

Anyone wondering what the heck happened in the last recession SHOULD READ THIS book. Authers makes it all really simple. I highly recommend, especially for students interested in economic history and finance. I bought one for a college friend and also for my dad who, like most, knows the basics of the collapses and bubbles of the past, but this book really chisels one's understanding with specific causes and effects.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Clear, Concise Explanation of What Went Wrong in Financial Markets November 25, 2010

By J. D. Hoeper

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have read several books about the causes of the recent stock market collapse by authors such as Michael Lewis, Charles Gasparino, and Henry Paulson. In THE FEARFUL RISE OF MARKETS John Authers has provided the best explanation I have yet found of the causes of the various financial crises and bubbles in the past twenty years. Read it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent ... November 5, 2010

By Clark Silva

Format:Hardcover

Since I appreciate and prefer simple indexing investing, I wanted to better understand our markets before investing in sectors or stocks in the near future. Concerned about the current global Debt and devaluation of the dollar, I was searching for a macro economics book and this was it.

This is a highly detailed yet simple read which provides a look at our past and current global market structures and the forces that move them. If you wish to review or, for the first time, effortlessly understand the actual market forces from a holistic point of view (currency, government finance, monetary policy, financial engineering, foreign markets, investor sentiment/confidence, etc) with concrete examples from recent history (depression, post WW and the impact of indexing and institutional investing), I recommend Authers work.

To shorten my own review, I recommend reading the review by AdamSmythe's as he has summarized the book well. I personally do not see this book as another book on "current crisis" as much as it is a detailed historical account of where the global markets are today, how they are connected more than ever and, finally, how we arrived at the current, if not historic, market conditions of 2010.

More About the Author

John Authers, investment editor for The Financial Times, serves as its main commentator on international markets. In this role, he has become one of the world's most influential financial journalists, with bylined columns on display pages of the FT five days each week. Authers speaks worldwide, and appears frequently on major US and global media, including the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS. He was recently honored as the UK's Investment Journalist of the Year for his ft.com coverage of the early days of the financial crisis. The Victim's Fortune, co-authored with Richard Wolffe, earned the prestigious Best of Knight-Bagehot Award. His most recent book is The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How To Prevent Them in the Future.