America’s fascination with the financial industry has produced more books than you could ever hope to read. That’s why we’ve put together a cheat sheet: the best 11 best books on Wall Street ever written.
These books on Wall Street provide the big picture: the stories that mattered, the people behind them, and the deals and collapses that made the industry what it is…
1. Liar’s Poker (Hodder Great Reads)
Lewis says he wrote the book partially to dissuade smart young college graduates from becoming bankers. But the opposite happened. Like the movie ‘Wall Street,’ book intended as a cautionary tale came across to many as a celebration of finance. From Portfolio: “I hoped that some bright kid at, say, Ohio State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley, and set out to sea. Somehow that message failed to come across. Six months after Liar’s Poker was published, I was knee-deep in letters from students at Ohio State who wanted to know if I had any other secrets to share about Wall Street. They’d read my book as a how-to manual.” Buy Here: Liar’s Poker (Hodder Great Reads)
2. Den of Thieves
The 1991 book details the insider trading scandals of the 1980s involving Wall Street big shots like junk-bond king Michael Milken.
From the NYTimes review:
“Milken accelerated a broad-gauged publicity campaign to convince the American public that his creation of the high-yield bond market had proved highly productive to the national economy [….] One mission of that campaign was to produce a book, eventually to be called ‘Portraits of the American Dream,’ which would feature company success stories that depended on Mr. Milken’s bonds. ‘But no sooner would the writers finish a chapter on a company such as Ingersoll Communications,’ writes Mr. Stewart, ‘than the company would threaten to default.'”
Buy Here – Den of Thieves
3. Rogue Trader
The autobiographical 1997 book describes how Leeson single-handedly caused the collapse of Barings Bank. It was later made into a movie starring Ewan McGregor.
When Leeson was arrested in 1995 for bringing Barings Bank to its knees, it initially seemed as if he had single-handedly crushed the company. Indeed, it was he alone who found himself in the dark confines of a Singapore jail, from where he wrote Rogue Trader. Now updated for the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of Barings, this is his story of a broken system; of a cast of characters blind to anything but profits – whatever the cost.
Leeson’s tale of boom and bust is an important reminder of the immense power the banking system held and, worryingly, still holds.
Buy Here – Rogue Trader
4. More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of the New Elite
The 2010 book is the best available history of the hedge fund sector. The Wall Street Journal called it “the fullest account we have so far of a too-little-understood business that changed the shape of finance and no doubt will continue to do so.”
A saga of riches and rich egos, this is also a history of discovery. Drawing on insights from mathematics, economics and psychology to crack the mysteries of the market, hedge funds have transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism. And while major banks, brokers, home lenders, insurers and money market funds failed or were bailed out during the crisis of 2007-9, the
hedge-fund industry survived the test, proving that money can be successfully managed without taxpayer safety nets. Anybody pondering fixes to the financial system could usefully start here: the future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.
Buy Here – More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of the New Elite
5. Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street
The 2009 book is the editor of Dealbook’s account of the 2008 crash.
This is where we got the most vivid anecdotes of the financial meltdown. Via HuffPo:
“For example, Sorkin reports that during the crisis, then, the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who was formerly Goldman Sachs CEO, complained loudly ‘It’s ridiculous that I can’t deal with Goldman at a time like this!’ Or Morgan Stanley head John Mack screaming ‘Nobody gives a sh*t about loyalty!'”Buy
Buy Here – Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street
6. When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
The 2000 book tells the story of the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. The fund suffered from excessive self-confidence; it had two Nobel laureates advising its investments. After back to back 40% returns from 1994 to 1998, the vastly over-leveraged LTCM fell victim to Russia’s 1998 default. The fund’s failure forced an unprecedented intervention from the giants of Wall Street.
From an excerpt of the book published in the NYTimes:
“For the first time, the Chiefs of Bankers Trust, Bear Stearns, Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Salomon Smith Barney gathered under the oil portraits in the Fed’s tenth-floor boardroom—not to bail out a Latin American nation but to consider a rescue of one of their own.”
Buy Here – When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
7. Barbarians At The Gate
The 1990 book is the definitive account of the 1980’s leveraged buyout boom. Many call it the “best business book ever” (MarketWatch). It tells the story of the takeover of RJR Nabisco. Twenty years on, the world is once again recovering from a period of financial extravagance and irresponsibility. This revised edition brings the ultimate business thriller up to date for a new generation of readers.
The book was fictionalised and made into an HBO movie in 1993. Watch the trailer here.
Buy Here – Barbarians At The Gate
8. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
The 1990 history tells the story of the JP Morgan dynasty.
From the NYTimes review:
Mr Chernow takes us on an extraordinary journey spanning generations and continents. It is a saga of incredible cunning, as when J. P. Morgan Sr., the founder’s son, learned to control American companies around the turn of the century by creating and dominating groups of their bondholders, or when, eight decades later, the three Morgan firms all learned to play the tough, slash-and-burn takeover game better than anyone else.
Buy Here – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
9. The Bonfire of the Vanities
Although a work of fiction, the 1987 novel defined the era of 1980s Wall Street. It was later made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, which was not that well received. Do yourself a favour and read the original in all its glorious satire, which somehow the movie failed to convey.
Buy Here – The Bonfire of the Vanities
10. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
As ‘Bonfire’ defined the ’80s, this 1991 novel defines the Wall Street of the ’90s: slick and successful on the surface, dangerous underneath.
If you’re familiar with the infamous 2000 film adaptation starring Christian Bale, know this: the book is actually far, far more graphic and disturbing. That may be hard to believe, but that’s just how intense this novel is.
Buy Here – American Psycho
11. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
The 2010 book is the definitive account of the subprime mortgage bubble. The cinematic narrative established the heroes of the financial crisis, like Meredith Whitney (who saw it coming), and explains in rich detail how people like John Paulson made billions betting against mortgage-backed securities.
Buy Here – The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
