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Click on the links to download or play the sound files (embedded player available). Part 1 (7 minutes 51 seconds) 0.30 Joining Phil Hardy at Polar Capital 1.50 Idea generation 4.40 What Phil Hardy brings to the process of stock selection 5.15 Harder to find shorts now 6.30 Shorts can work faster than longs Part 2 (10 minutes 50 seconds) 0.25 Websites look at daily 1.35 Websites useful for company insight 2.58 Segro as an example 4.50 Recent investment book reading- Niall Ferguson, “The Greatest Trade Ever” 8.37 Risk/Reward for UK equity trades 9.05 Two other influential books – “Soros on Soros” and “Inside the House of Money” With thanks to Nick Shenton CFA who works on UK equity hedge fund and absolute return products with Polar Capital Director Philip Hardy
The Greatest Trade Ever
By Gregory Zuckerman
Reviewed by Alexandra Scaggs from www.smartmoney.com
Ever wonder how a single trade can create a legend? Gregory Zuckerman outlines how just such a thing happened with John Paulson and the rest of the characters who profited wildly from the collapse of the real estate bubble.”
In The Greatest Trade Ever,” Zuckerman, who writes The Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column, focuses as much on the personalities and characters of the investors as on the bubble and collapse that increased their wealth exponentially.
Players here include Paulson, whom Zuckerman characterizes as a reformed playboy and true skeptic; Paolo Pellegrini, a Wall Street outsider who went to Paulson for his last shot at a career; Jeffrey Greene, the Hollywood version of a big-shot investor; and Andrew Lahde, the young West-Coast investor who cashed out and left finance for good.
The book addresses how deals are made and how personality counts just as much as the financial mechanics behind the trade, which may be why Paulson has come out with a statement saying he is “disappointed” with the book. But Zuckerman shows that in finance, office politics can matter as much as smarts.