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Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market
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Product Description
This is the true story of a top Wall Street player who chronicles his own transformation from a straight arrow believer in the markets, to a jaded critic who reveals how the insiders' game is really played. Dan Reingold was one of the top analysts on Wall Street. Specializing in telecom companies like WorldCom and Qwest, Reingold believed in Wall Street, and was a part of it. But in this insiders memoir, Reingold describes how his enthusiasm gradually gave way to disgust when he saw how deeply corrupt Wall Street really was. Because big investors had the advantage of inside information, which companies shared with more accommodating analysts, Reingold saw how a straight arrow like himself was doomed to fail. Reingold is like an incredulous minister who mistakenly finds himself in a whore house. He struggles with temptation: for example, his employer, Credit Suisse First Boston, wants him to sign a contract that would give him huge incentives in return for essentially selling out his clients. He seethes with resentment at being continually trumped by his nemesis, Jack Grubman, who was viewed as a superstar and only later, fined and thrown out of the industry. Ultimately, Reingold comes to terms with the corrupted, insiders' game that was his profession. In the tradition of "Liar's Poker", this is a lively, insider's account of how things really work on Wall Street that will teach even Eliot Spitzer a few things. To complete his tale, Reingold even sat through the 2005 trial of one of the most spectacular losers of the 1990s, fallen WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers, who Reingold knew in his heyday. This is a very personal story, and a warts-and-all look at the investing business that is extremely relevant in today's post-scandal world. It is co-written with his niece, Jennifer Reingold, a talented Fast Company senior writer.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #546025 in Books
- Published on: 2006-02-01
- Released on: 2006-02-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 368 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
When retired telecommunications analyst Dan Reingold decided to write an account of what he'd seen while working for powerful Wall Street investment banks, he turned to his niece, a journalist at Fast Company and the author of Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Anderson, for help. Together, they've created a solid structure for his recollections of life in the trenches, but because he's one of the good guys, Reingold doesn't have much to confess. Beyond detailing every step in his upward career mobility, Reingold does little but gripe about people like his main competitor, Jack Grubman, who spent years flaunting insider connections with executives who would float him advance info on major corporate deals. (Grubman is currently a defendant in several securities fraud cases.) Reingold does suggest that insider influence is so pervasive in the financial market that investors should avoid individual stocks completely, and he has a number of recommendations for industry-wide reform, but in the end, his story is basically that he worked in the same industry as a bunch of bad eggs. While the personal material is never less than engaging, it doesn't fundamentally alter our understanding of the recent market scandals. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Reingold, a prominent Wall Street analyst from 1989 to 2003, sets out to give a first-person narrative about business fraud and scandal. Because the author began his career at MCI, he opens the book with the trial of WorldCom (MCI)'s Bernie Ebbers and the mid-2002 collapse of the company, caused by lies and deception, which resulted in the $180-billion decline in shareholder value and 30,000 employees fired. As a telecom analyst on Wall Street, it was his job to understand WorldCom's numbers, and he missed the manipulation, as did many others. Turning his focus toward Wall Street, the author reveals how it really works. Although there has been some cleanup, he contends there are still many leaks, conflicts, and abuses of the law and investor trust. He claims that the book's contents are true, and unfair and often-illegal use of inside information continues. He believes that the average investor can never win the stock-market game, which belongs to the insiders. Interesting insight. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"It’s a terrific memoir. This honest and irreverent behind-the-scenes account of life on Wall Street is highly recommended." -- Library Journal
Customer Reviews
Caveat Investor: "Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst" by Dan Reingold with Jennifer Reingold 
Over the course of the past 10 years, I have watched with dismay the devolution of the telecommunications industry. My point of reference has been the anecdotal feedback I have received from numerous friends and acquaintances that were employed in a wide variety of telecom companies - AT&T, Lucent, MCI, Global Crossing, to name just a few. It has been a tale of woe, with elements of malfeasance, misfeasance, greed, incompetence and venality.
A friend who works in the world of investments suggested that I read Dan Reingold's memoir, recently published by Collins, the Harper Collins imprint that produces most of their business titles. The full title of this fascinating and chilling book is, "Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst - A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market." From his vantage point as one of the most respected Wall Street analysts covering the telecom industry, Reingold tells the ultimate "caveat emptor" story that should give pause to all of us who make stock market investment decisions.
Reingold tells a very credible tale, mixing in enough elements of mea culpa to make his story believable and accessible. In hindsight, he wonders why he and other analysts did not uncover before it was too late the accounting duplicity and fraud that ultimately led to indictments of several key telecom executives, and that served as the straw that broke the camel's back of the telecom industry.
In the first 300 pages, Reingold does an excellent job of walking the reader through the development of his role as an award-winning analyst, first within the fledgling MCI, and then on Wall Street with Morgan Stanley and finally with Credit Suisse First Boston. Reingold's long-time rival and nemesis, analyst Jack Grubman of Salomon Smith Barney, serves as the perfect foil for exposing the abuses and excesses of an industry that continued to blur the line between the analyst side of the house and the investment banking side. The SEC emerges as an "unindicted co-conspirator" for its years of inaction and complacency in turning a blind eye to escalating levels of abuse.
The crucial take-aways for me in reading this book are Reingold's strong words of warning to individual investors to open their eyes and realize that in many ways we are not competing on a level playing field.
"Last and most important, investors need to be aware that they're playing a loser's game. No matter what laws or rules are changed, the investment banking and brokerage businesses are fraught with inherent and inevitable conflicts, conflicts that can hurt even the biggest investors. Rather than trusting in the inherent fairness of the markets, individuals buying stocks should assume that they will never receive the same information as the professionals. It's an insider's world, and it always will be." (Page 301)
"Individuals should not be buying individual stocks. I know this is a radical statement, especially coming from a guy who researched individual stocks for a living. But there are simply too many insiders with too many unfair advantages. Biased research or not, insider trading or not, the markets are, and will remain, rampant with uneven information flow. Some privileged and talented professionals will always receive or ferret out information earlier than everyone else. To be an investor in this environment is like being a drug-free athlete whose competitors are all juiced up on steroids." (Page 313)
"Individual investors should assume that the information and advice they receive regarding individual stocks are stale and, to a large degree, already incorporated into stock prices. Even the majority of professional investors find the deck is stacked against them, since it is only a minority of well-connected, high-commission paying, deal-absorbing institutions that receive the favored information flow." (Page 314)
Clearly, this book is one man's opinion, but that man had a unique "seat at the table" for many years. I told a friend of mine, who is an investment professional, that I would be reviewing this book, and I offered him an opportunity to make his own comments. Look for these comments to be published the week of November 6, after I return from a much-anticipated vacation.
Inside the convoluted web of greed but no fear
A fantastic account of one brilliant, talented, and hardworking man's ascent from Buffalo to the hallowed halls of Wall Street. In spite of the great views, the fantastic parties, the private jets, and the great pay it appears to have been a lonely trip. The account is that of the only honest guy on the street. The other analysts will do anything to get a piece of the cheese. Here's the story of one man's ethical struggle against a system that proclaims loudly, " GREED IS GOOD". The account is honest and forthright. Many of the stories are outrageously funny. The book is enjoyable and reads quickly. Make sure you buy it for your kid in college who aspires to be, " An Investment Banker."
A straight shooter gets revenge on his arch rival
This is a very valuable book for those who want to know what Wall Street analysts do, or at least what they did in this period. As a former Wall Street analyst, I can attest that it has the ring of truth. The author comes across as being overly obsessed with Jack Grubman, however. Getting revenge seems to have been one of his strongest motivations in writing this book, and he certainly has succeeded.
Dan Reingold is vulnerable to criticism himself. He pats himself on the back for putting "Hold" recommendations on stocks that fell sharply, and that he claims he thought were probably going to fall sharply. Why not say "Sell?" His defense seems to be that he was spending his time finding stocks that were Buys, and if a stock was not a "Buy" there was no point in writing a report on the stock.
At the end of the book he makes some recommendations about how to reform the role of Wall Street analysts. He makes well-founded points about the flaws in Spitzer's "reforms". But his own recommendations are poorly thought out. He does not seem fully to appreciate the economics behind research departments.
