Raphael read this and says "should you ever have the inclination to think you can make money as a so called 'day trader' from home, read this book and think again. It's an eye opener!

Read it in 2006, a serious aha erlebnis. System made no sense, as proven 2 years later. History of the Asian crisis was another aha moment. Living there then, a lot also made little financial sense. Impressive book. Very personal.

Satyajit Das’ Traders, Guns, and Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives details the arcane world of derivatives trading. Das not suggest that derivatives are all bad—there is a logic in say a farmer wanting protection against uncertainty in prices—however, if unchecked there can be major problems and distortions in markets. Das’ book includes several case studies in derivatives bets going wrong, as well as his personal experiences. Although somewhat technical at times, this book is, on the whole an interesting read, providing insight into an area of finance many of us may not be familiar with.

The Skinny: Fun, fast read about the wild world of derivatives. Essentially a series of mini stories through which different derivatives are explained.

The Good: First off, the fact that this was written right before the global financial crisis makes it extra interesting. As you read the stories all I could think about is how the derivatives for the GFC were being created. I think The Big Short may have gotten some inspiration from this book. Overall the book is a good read. The stories are humorous, the material is digestible, and it sheds a lot of light on a sector that is often super confusing. Laughed out loud more than I expected for sure.

The Bad: You will need some passing familiarity with derivatives to appreciate it properly but most concepts are explained well enough to follow, although you will still get confused here and there. Some parts are certainly more interesting than others. Too many gosh darn grammar and typos.

Really good book but I didn't understand some of it. I'm not in finance.

Excellent book about the world of high finance. Shows how it's full of con artists and salesmen and people willing to do anything for a piece of the (huge) pie out there in the financial world. Definitely recommend this along with Frank Partnoy's book.

anecdotal and pretty up front about its contrivances, it was descriptive without being bland. although i'm still not exactly sure what's going on.

Provides a very comprehensive, tongue-in-cheek survey of the financial industry and thus provides a useful roadmap of where we have been and how we got here. Das' style tends to be a bit stocatto and the latter half of the book was a much slower read especially once Das gets into structured products. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't already have a decent grasp of derivatives.

This is really Michael Lewis....... IT'S BETTER
I've read so many reviews, it's doesn't explain this derivative well, etc. It's not a textbook! It's not marketed as one.
Look when it was published! It's absolutely genius. The last paragraph in the book is a prophecy!!!!!!
Michael Lewis has 20:20 vision writing after the crisis
Das has foresight writing in 2016

Laugh out loud funny. Very clever author.
Michael Lewis would have no qualms with my review. They are not the same thing at all. Too many comments here are reviewing apples with goats

Actually pretty funny and enlightening. Provided some great context and satire on the CFA material I'm currently studying.

The book literally gave me the opportunity to get an insider's look into quantitative finance. At some point while reading, however, I felt The author sounded a bit delusional, especially when describing the people that ran exotic options and futures desks at big institutions and hedge funds. Overall, it's pretty much an average book. Expected better than this.

Started out interesting to me and then fizzled out.