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The Quants - by Scott Patterson (Paperback)

The Quants - by  Scott Patterson (Paperback)
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Last Price: 14.99 USD

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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>With the immediacy of today's NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, <i>The Quants </i>is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris, and an ominous warning about Wall Street's future. </b> <p/>In March of 2006, four of the world's richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking <i>billions.</i> <p/> On that night, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the <i>quants</i>. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz--technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers--had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who'd long been the alpha males the world's largest casino. The quants helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history's greatest financial disaster. <p/> Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, <i>The Quants </i>tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize--and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ's had led them so wrong, so fast.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"Scott Patterson has the ability to see things you and I don't notice. In<i> The Quants</i> he does an admirable job of debunking the myths of black box traders and provides a very entertaining narrative in the process." <b>--Nassim Nicholas Taleb, New York Times bestselling author of<i> Fooled by Randomness</i> and<i> The Black Swan</i> </b><br><b> </b> <br> "Fascinating and deeply disturbing...Patterson gives faces and personalities to the quants, making their saga accessible and intriguing...[he's] onto a big story that begs follow-up." <i><b>--New York Times</b></i> <p/> "Valuable...makes [the quants'] secretive world comprehensible...the story radiates with hubris, high stakes and expensive toys." <b>--Bloomberg.com</b> <p/> "A riveting account...there are many dramatic moments and a good dose of schadenfreude in Scott Patterson's THE QUANTS." <i><b>--Financial Times</b></i> <p/> "Read this book if you want to understand how the collapse of the global financial system was at its core a failure of modern financial theory and its most ardent disciples. Patterson is able to gracefully explain the complex ideas underpinning our financial system through an extraordinarily engaging and insightful story." <b>--Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody's Economy.com and author of<i> Financial Shock</i> </b> <p/> Enlightening and enjoyable...Patterson masterfully recounts how brilliant mathematicians and technologists ignored the human element...If you're serious about understanding the financial meltdown, you need to read this book. <b>--David Vise, Pulitzer Prize Winner, author of<i> The Google Story, </i> and Senior Advisor, New Mountain Capital</b> <p/> A compelling tale of greed and conceit, <i> The Quants</i> tells the inside story of the Wall Street rocket scientists who could couldn't resist playing with numbers and nearly blew themselves up." <b>--Michael J. Panzner, author of<i> Financial Armageddon</i> and</b><i><b> When Giants Fail</b><br> </i><br> <i>The Quants</i> will keep hedge fund managers on the edge of their Aeron chairs, while the rest of us read in horror about their greed and their impact on the wider economy. A gripping tale right until the last page...but I fear this is perhaps not yet the end of the story. <b>--Paul Wilmott, Oxford Ph.D., founding partner of Caissa Capital, and author of<i> Paul Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance</i> </b> <p/> "A character-rich tale of how quirky geniuses cut their teeth on gambling, then moved on to the biggest casino of all, Wall Street. From blackjack to black swans, <i>The Quants</i> tells how we got where we are today." <b>--William Poundstone, author of<i> Fortune's Formula</i> </b> <p/><b><br></b><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>SCOTT PATTERSON</b> is author of the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling book <i>The Quants </i>and<i> Dark Pools</i> and a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. His work has also appeared in the New <i>York Times, Rolling Stone</i> and <i>Mother Earth News</i>. He has a masters of arts degree from James Madison University. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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