Great book. I learned a ton, but it jumps around a little and could use another review by the editor to clean up some typos.

This book is long and I wished it was longer.

This book does it all. Goes into details when necessary, throws quips when required, uses anecdotes and personal experience in a wonderful and enjoyable way.

This book has long chapters but divided into sections in a manner that makes this book very much digestible despite its size.

Even if you don't want to know about derivatives, this book is worth reading for the author's sense of humor.

Excellent book on derivatives. A must read for those who are interested in finance

A high finance memoir, written in the format of a highly-irreverant and idiosyncratic textbook, bracketed with a David-and-Goliath lawsuit worthy of John Grisham.

I found this book really smart and interesting. Perfect for someone interested in financial markets and history

Lemmed...to boringly technical. I will stick to his interviews which are much better.

Best book on finance that I have read

I take back what I said earlier, which is that Traders, Guns and Money is rather disappointing for such a critically acclaimed book.

I still stand by what I said about the book's tone -- from the punchy three-word title you could recognise it for the way it reads, sort of a stand up comic routine on the derivative markets. The first half wasn't especially compelling, as the castigation of financial professionals is so generalised. You have to be offensive to be funny, I guess.

Once you get past that, the second half rocks -- perhaps because I don't take any personal offense, not being involved in derivatives. It's a great insider's view of how and why derivatives evolved, with great and simple (and cynical) explanations of why various structures were created (generally, to evade taxes, get around trading regulations, and other ways to give investors more yield and earn banks more fees). The anecdotes and narrative read like a late-night drink confessional -- probably exaggerated but sounding true enough in essence, and deeply educational.

As mentioned previously, it doesn't claim to be a rigorous, comprehensive risk management textbook (which Das has written) so it won't be that sort of educational if that's what you're looking for.
But through anecdotes it gives a sharp sense of the culture of the people involved, something you could never find even in very good textbooks.

Firstly, I hope I’m spelling “Tolle Lege” correctly. Haven’t bothered to check.

Anyways this week’s book comes from Satyajit Das entitled “Traders, Guns and Money…”. This book mainly deals with the knowns and unknowns of financial derivatives. What’s that? I’m glad you asked!

Financial derivatives are an instrument (like a contact) which derive their value from another thing. Confused? Me too.

About a year ago I was introduced to a man named Kyle Bass who is a hedge fund owner (Hayman Capital) and a growing figure in the financial world. The topics he talked about in interviews and conferences were fascinating to listen to. So I was encouraged to buy a book on derivatives to understand some of the jargon he and other hedge fund owners were throwing around.

Thats where this books came in. Dat, however, didn’t do the job for me… not because he was a sloppy writer or ignorant, but because I am a sloppy reader and dumb! I’m fairly new to the derivative world and Dat’s writing method didn’t cut it for me. He mainly wrote about his interaction with other people in banking, corporate, etc. in a comical way and didn’t explain what a derivative actually is and go into the specifics (neither was the book intended to do that).

But I did learn many things from the book so its not all that bad, in fact I’m planning on going back to it later after I’ve gained some more knowledge to the derivative world.

For example I learned that derivatives can be both good and bad. Good in that it produces wealth and an abundance of it. Bad when it falls into the wrong hands. Dat gives ample examples of that (Enron, P & G, etc).

Also this got me thinking that derivative trading was one of, if not, the main cause to the housing bubble. The author puts it succinctly when he says “credit was derivatized”.

All in all the book was an okay read even if I didn’t retain all the information given.

3.5/5 stars for Dat!

Enjoy!

merely an intro to trading book for novices. Dont expect much apart from the usual blow against traders, occasional Keynes quote and some basic maths for the products

A humorous account of the post crisis financial institutions. While the key concepts around derivatives i.e. weapons of mass destruction are explained without use of jargon, it get repetitive and tedious towards the later chapters.

Great book about derivative markets. A real eye opener. Written before the global financial crisis but contains clues to the future.