market folly

Lawrence McDonald, a former Vice President at Lehman Brothers has written an insightful insider account of the collapse that rocked Wall Street. Quickly climbing the ranks of the NY Times Bestseller list, his book is entitled, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Insider Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. In the book, he gives you tons of details regarding the fall and pegs the demise on decisions from chief executive and chairman Richard (Dick) Fuld. Essentially, Lehman was a large hedge fund employing 40:1 leverage and at one point had 35% of its net tangible assets in three huge real estate ventures. Needless to say, that's a recipe for disaster. The book goes on to provide juicy details that you can really sink your teeth into and is the perfect read for those who want the true insider account so that you can feel like you were there when it all went down.

The book's premise really is self-explanatory so pick it up for all the intriguing details. To give us more color, here's an interview Lawrence McDonald (the author of the book & now a managing director at hedge fund Pangea Capital) did with our pal over on Twitter, Misstrade.

(RSS & Email readers come to the blog to view the video interview):




Interesting stuff certainly. Of course make sure you check out Lawrence's excellent book, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Insider Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. If you want to get behind closed doors, then this is the book for you.