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Christine S. Richard
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Confidence Game: How Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman Called Wall Street's Bluff Hardcover – 8 April 2010

by Christine S. Richard (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 272 ratings
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An expose on the delusion, greed, and arrogance that led to America's credit crisis

The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.

  • Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging and human drama
  • Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street's best-known investors
  • Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models, and a blind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Street careening toward disaster

Confidence Game is a real world "Emperor's New Clothes," a tale of widespread delusion, and one dissenting voice in the era leading up to the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bloomberg Press
  4. Publication date
    8 April 2010
  5. Dimensions
    15.88 x 3.18 x 23.5 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0470648279
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0470648278
  8. See all details
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Review

"This a riveting account of a tenacious investor, incompetent/apathetic regulators & analysts and a company that hid information, deceived investors and used every connection it had in its attempts to silence him. At points this reads like a John Grisham novel ? except it actually happened. For me, this is the best of the ?melt down? books to date ? hands down."
? Todd Sullivan, valueplays.net, April 2010

" ... Ackman?s pursuit of MBIA spanned the two major crises of capitalism of the last decade, from the earlier era of corporate fraud prosecutions epitomized by Enron and its off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles (SPVs), to the late credit debacle stemming from the collapse of the CDO house of cards."
?The Hedge Fund Law Report, May 2010

Review

"This a riveting account of a tenacious investor, incompetent/apathetic regulators & analysts and a company that hid information, deceived investors and used every connection it had in its attempts to silence him. At points this reads like a John Grisham novel ? except it actually happened. For me, this is the best of the ?melt down? books to date ? hands down."
? Todd Sullivan, valueplays.net, April 2010

" ... Ackman?s pursuit of MBIA spanned the two major crises of capitalism of the last decade, from the earlier era of corporate fraud prosecutions epitomized by Enron and its off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles (SPVs), to the late credit debacle stemming from the collapse of the CDO house of cards."
?The Hedge Fund Law Report, May 2010

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomberg Press; 1st edition (8 April 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0470648279
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470648278
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.88 x 3.18 x 23.5 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 272 ratings

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Christine S. Richard

Christine S. Richard

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Top review from Australia

Kim
2.0 out of 5 stars The print of the cover was off.
Reviewed in Australia on 26 November 2021
Verified Purchase
The print of the book cover was off-centre so there were white lines on top and bottom of the front and back of the book
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Kim
2.0 out of 5 stars The print of the cover was off.
Reviewed in Australia on 26 November 2021
The print of the book cover was off-centre so there were white lines on top and bottom of the front and back of the book
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Customer image
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Top reviews from other countries

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edgar
5.0 out of 5 stars Muy recomendable
Reviewed in Spain on 28 November 2021
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Muy buen libro, un grande Bill
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Ilir
5.0 out of 5 stars Very impressed with book
Reviewed in Germany on 9 July 2021
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Great book
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vasu mehta
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in India on 13 September 2018
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Great book . Tells valuations process used by Pershing square capital management but not for layman must have deep understanding of derivative
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars a great read.
Reviewed in Canada on 5 December 2015
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Meticulously detailed, a great read.
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Howard
5.0 out of 5 stars A really great read!
Reviewed in the United States on 2 August 2015
Verified Purchase
I bought this book along with David Einhorn's (  Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, A Long Short (and Now Complete) Story, Updated with New Epilogue  ) which is very similar in the storyline and end result.

I thought this book was presented much better and I found myself more immersed in it than with Einhorn's. I was fighting to get through Einhorn's book, while I found myself wanting to read more of this one.

All that being said, what Ackman did was tremendous - truly a David vs. Goliath task. However, as much respect as I have for Ackman and what he did and accomplished - as I read the book, I found myself questioning "Did Ackman simply uncover what was going on and made money being right"? or "Did Ackman actually cause the series of events to take place which caused the collapse of MBIA and other insurers after years of pitching his story"? It's sort of the same kind of thing that Dick Fuld brings up when discussing Lehman and Hank Greenberg discussing AIG...would the events which took place and the ultimate demise have happened on their own had short sellers and some of the nefarious actors not done what they did? Or would business have just continued as it always had? Though each of the companies did have problems, I'm not so sure that they would not have been able to muddle through...I believe it was with the added pressure applied by folks like Ackman and Einhorn that undermined public confidence in these companies that ultimately threw them into turmoil. Of course the financial crisis threw gasoline into the fire, but again, had public confidence not been undermined, perhaps they would have been able to raise additional money, righted their ships, and continued? The fact that MBIA is still in business today makes you really ask these questions. How could MBIA still be in business if what they were offering provided no benefit to the purchasers of municipal bond insurance and was simply added cost to taxpayers? Is there business really so different today?

Today, MBIA does $1B in revenues while carrying $9B in debt - however, they are posting decent/strong earnings - $1.81/share over trailing 12 months with a stock price at $6.00. Ackman called for MBIA to go to bankruptcy, and it still has not happened...even after everything which has taken place.
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