When Genius Failed
by Roger Lowenstein
Long-Term Capital Management: Nobel laureates, enormous leverage, models that assumed normal markets, and the 1998 collapse that required a Fed-brokered rescue. The clearest lesson that brilliance plus leverage equals ruin.
Read it if…
you want the classic case of overconfidence in finance.
See the book →
Skip it if…
you dislike finance detail.
Try instead: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. →
Three things you will actually use
- Models fail at the tails.
- Leverage turns a bad month into death.
- Genius is not a risk control.
Do this first
Read the chapters on the summer of 1998.
Our verdict
Brilliance plus leverage.
See the book →
Compare with other Money books
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
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