The Other Side of Wall Street: In Business It Pays to Be an Animal, In Life It Pays to Be Yourself [Hardcover]

Todd A. Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2011

In The Other Side of Wall Street, Minyanville.com founder and former hedge fund honcho Todd Harrison shares never-before-told stories from the hidden side of Wall Street, including the adrenaline rush of trading at the highest levels, Wall Street’s super-indulgent lifestyles; Harrison’s time in the trenches fighting with (and then against) Jim Cramer; why he left investing completely, and how he returned to earn his redemption. Thousands of readers have tasted Harrison’s story in a recent Dow Jones MarketWatch serialization: now for the first time, he shares his entire extraordinary personal memoir.

 

You’ll walk alongside Harrison through the "golden door" that took him into Morgan Stanley in its 1990s heyday. Share his ringside view of the explosive growth of derivatives, and the disasters that followed. Ride the emotional roller coaster of colossal wins and losses and discover what it’s really like to work with Jim Cramer. Then travel with Harrison through the 2000s, the most tumultuous decade in investing history. Harrison’s seen it all, done it all, and earned perspective and insight available to only a few. If you want to know what it’s really like at Wall Street’s pinnacle–and in its deepest depths–one book will tell you: The Other Side of Wall Street.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“A tale of purpose and integrity in an age when those traits have become true commodities.”

David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981—1985)

 

“Will grab you and make you keep turning pages….”

John Mauldin, four-time New York Times bestselling author

 

“…offers loving testimony to the need to find your soul in order to truly gain the world.”

Abe Peck, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

 

“Todd Harrison pulls back the curtain on Wall Street.”

Martin Dunn, former Editor-in-Chief, New York Daily News

 

“Bristles with integrity, honesty, and personal confession….”

Pimm Fox, host of Taking Stock on Bloomberg TV

 

“The best conversation about money at the personal and business level that I have ever read.”

Dr. Tahira K. Hira, Professor and Chairwoman, NYSE Euronext Financial Literacy Advisory Committee

 

“The straight dope from the last honest man on Wall Street….”

Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation

 

“Harrison is a brilliant trader with a poet’s heart.”

Diane Galligan, Managing Editor, Yahoo! Finance

 

“His journey is humbling and inspirational.”

Peter Atwater, former Treasurer, Bank ONE

 

“Todd Harrison helps the reader find his or her guideposts for a happy and meaningful life.”

C. Warren Moses, former CEO, The Children’s Aid Society

 

“Unlike any Wall Street story you have ever read.”

Jamie Hammond, former Business Editor of AOL and WashingtonPost.com

 

This is a story of personal experience, although none of what you’re about to read comes from a place of perceived accomplishment. I’m not particularly proud of some of the details in this book, but they helped shape the person I am today.

I confused net worth with self-worth.

I didn’t know the difference between having fun and being happy.

I looked for validation in the bottom of a bank account, and when I arrived at where I thought I wanted to be, I wanted—and needed—more.

...I never thought I was that guy.

 

In this stunning personal memoir, founder and CEO of Minyanville Media and former president of Cramer Berkowitz, Todd Harrison narrates his incredible Wall Street story: a tale of rise, fall, and redemption so remarkable that Oliver Stone featured it in his 20th anniversary Wall Street documentary.

 

Harrison reveals the hidden side of Wall Street: the extreme personalities, the testosterone-driven lifestyles, the euphoria, the despair…and what happens when it’s all over.

 

You’ll share a ringside view of the rise of high-stakes finance through the ’90s and ’00s—and the titanic collapse that followed. You’ll also discover what it’s really like to partner with Jim Cramer—the highs, the lows, and everything in between.

 

This is a story you had to live to tell. Harrison lived it and survived to tell it—unforgettably.

 

• Entering the “golden door”

Joining Morgan Stanley in its 1990s heyday

 

• Hunger and passion, bliss and terror

Life with Cramer and the global markets

 

• Missing the “bigger trade”

Finding inner strength when the world changes and the calls stop

 

• Making peace, learning gratitude, moving forward

A new business, a new journey, a new life

 

A Minyanville Media Publication.

About the Author

TODD A. HARRISON, founder and CEO of Minyanville Media, Inc., has 20 years of experience on Wall Street. He spent 7 years on the worldwide equity derivative desk at Morgan Stanley as Vice President, was Managing Director of Derivatives at The Galleon Group, and was President of the $400 million hedge fund Cramer Berkowitz. He has appeared on FOX, CNBC, CNN, and Bloomberg TV, and in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Worth, Fortune, Barron’s, Dow Jones MarketWatch, New York Magazine, and Canada’s National Post.

 

Todd has lectured at numerous academic institutions including Harvard University, Syracuse University, New York University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been active in research of financial market learning tendencies among college students, and was a contributing author to “Threat, Intimidation, and Student Financial Market Knowledge: An Empirical Study,” published in the Journal of Education for Business.

 

Todd was featured in the 20th anniversary documentary of Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street and in 2008, he received an Emmy Award from The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his role as Executive Producer of Minyanville’s World in Review, the first and only animated business news show.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (May 22, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013248966X
• ISBN-13: 978-0132489669
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #860,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Todd A. Harrison, founder and CEO of Minyanville Media Inc, has 20 years of experience on Wall Street. He spent seven years on the worldwide equity derivative desk at Morgan Stanley, was managing director of derivatives at The Galleon Group, and was president of the $400 million hedge fund Cramer Berkowitz. He has appeared on FOX, CNBC, CNN, and Bloomberg TV, and in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Worth, Fortune, Barron's, Dow Jones MarketWatch, New York Magazine, and Canada's National Post.

He has lectured at numerous universities including Harvard, Syracuse, NYU, and The Wharton School of Finance, and was featured in the 20th anniversary documentary of Oliver Stone's movie Wall Street. In 2008, he received an Emmy Award from The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his role as executive producer of Minyanville's World In Review, the first and only animated business news show.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reminiscences of a Hedge Fund Operator May 11, 2011

By David Emanuel VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I confess I didn't know who Todd Harrison was when I got this book. I'd been to Minyanville a few times and I thought that the iconic stock market characters Hoofy and Boos were fun. As a former finance professor turned trader who develops his own ideas, I wasn't likely to be receptive to his slender volume of reminiscences.

Instead, I was surprised and enthralled by the story of Todd's life starting with being brought up in a fractured family where his grandfather became his surrogate father. After a brief adolescent interlude with his estranged father, the story moves rapidly to the college years at Syracuse and thence to being a clueless entry-level hire at Morgan Stanley.

Clueless or not, he rapidly learns and builds relationships to become a star options and derivatives trader, first at Morgan, then at Galleon and finally at Cramer-Berkowitz. I found this book engrossing and impossible to put down as I read about his rapidly increasing financial rewards and his equally rapidly increasing cognitive dissonance and conflicts.

The writing is very straightforward and linear but along the way we learn about Todd's grandfather Ruby, his father's demons, Jim Cramer, September 11th and finally his journey from writing for the Street to putting together Minyanville.

This book reminds me a little of "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator". Both are slender volumes but Harrison's book is much more open about revealing his conflicts and demons. Maybe if Jesse Livermore could similarly have used writing as method of self-discovery his life might not have ended in suicide.

Could this all be a con? Could he be selling us a bill of goods as self-justification? I suppose so - but somehow I think not. I think we have actually been granted an honest insight into what it is to be Todd Harrison.

29 of 36 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed June 3, 2011

By TheOnlyOpinionThatMatters

Format:Hardcover

I thought the book was not very informative, the stories were not well told, and most of it was told in a very self-serving tone.

It was unconvincing how Harrison discovers how money isn't everything, after he has made millions.

The way he talked about 9/11 was too much about himself....

The most annoying thing about the book was how on every page there is a section with HUGE print, quoting something that was already on that page.

When I bought this, I was expecting something that would be more interesting to read than this. Overall, a bit disappointed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Money and Mayhem on Wall Street September 15, 2011

By J. Mullally VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

As a fan of Minyanville for many years, I was eager to read the 'inside story' of the site, but was not prepared for this tale of money and mayhem on Wall Street.
I was pleasantly surprised and even shocked in parts by the author's honesty in detailing his meteoric rags to riches back to rags tale, and my only complaint about the book is that I would have wanted more detail about the most recent 5 years of his life, rather than so much detail from 1991 to 2002.
Here was a man who had it all, and lost it, only to find a kind of personal redemption through his new mission, Minyanville, designed to help ordinary people make sense out of the financial markets.
While there was a fair bit of jargon that went completely over my head, I followed along eagerly, reading the whole book in one sitting, as he detailed the extraordinary human beings with whom he worked during his meteoric rise and spectacular fall.
Like many people, his defeat was not so much a personal one as a combination of historical circumstances which were devastating in their impact.
I admit I cried when I read about his experiences watching the devastation of the World Trade Center on 9/11, they were so close to my own. So was his description of the aftermath of those attacks and the profound personal impact it had on him and his work and personal life, taking him in unforeseen but incredibly worthwhile directions he had never imagined for himself.
He hit an all time low, aided by people who were supposed to be his friends, but who did whatever they could to keep on using him as a cash cow.
I was thrilled to read about his ideas for Hoofy and Boo being so successful. And while Hoofy is not yet exactly the cash cow (er, bull) that he had hoped for, we are left at the end of the book wholeheartedly cheering him on and hoping that he will indeed rise from the ashes stronger than ever before.
This is a fascinating rollercoaster of a book, part confessional, part catharsis, part 'whodunnit', part insider view of "The Other Side of Wall Street," and all uniquely Todd Harrison.