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Non-Tech : Derivatives: Darth Vader's Revenge -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (767)	1/26/1999 11:00:00 AM
From: Henry Volquardsen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2794

Hi Sam, Well at the risk of being a little self-serving myself ;) and in full recognition that it has been about a decade since I read the book I'll give it a shot. There is always a natural split within trading firms between sales and traders. It centers about who is really making the money and who is responsible for the success. Sometimes this split is just friendly banter, sometimes it is very nasty. There also tend to be firms that get a rep for being a type where one or another 'faction' is in ascendancy. Take for example the book 'Bonfire of the Vanities'. The salesman was considered a 'master of the universe'. At other firms the traders are considered as most important and sales are at the bottom of the pecking order. Lewis worked at Salomon. Salomon had a reputation in the 80s of being the most extreme example of a trader's firm. Lewis was on the sales side and pretty junior at that. As such he probably took a lot of grief. The book contains a lot of examples of trader's acting boorishly. Now don't get me wrong, that stuff happens. And Lewis's account was hilarious. But I definitely got the feeling he put a little extra relish on some of his descriptions of brutish traders. Also he didn't really go into the behavior of sales people and trust me they can be as bad. His book also struck me as condescending. There is a very pronounced tone of disapproval towards all the 'greed' and perceived shallowness of Wall Street. Now while I accept that characterization as probably true, I got the feeling he felt he was better than the rest of us money grubbers despite the fact that he came to the Street as well. But don't get me wrong, 'Liar's Poker' is very funny. As far as his subsequent reporting it has generally struck me as pretty shallow. Take the article in the Times Magazine. I haven't read it yet but intend to. However I saw someone post a summary. Included was a comment that the folks at LTCM said that in order to get access to lines they had to explain the type of trades they were doing and educating the market. The market then used this 'knowledge' to screw them. What bullshit. If this is indeed in the article how can Lewis, or any other knowledgeable reporter accept it without laughing in their face. Pretty shallow reporting imo. Henry