Red-Blooded Risk: The Secret History of Wall Street
From 1987 to 1992, a small group of Wall Street quants invented an entirely new way of managing risk to maximize success: risk management for risk-takers. This is the secret that lets tiny quantitative edges create hedge fund billionaires, and defines the powerful modern global derivatives economy. The same practical techniques are still used today by risk-takers in finance as well as many other fields. Red-Blooded Risk examines this approach and offers valuable advice for the calculated risk-takers who need precise quantitative guidance that will help separate them from the rest of the pack.
While most commentators say that the last financial crisis proved it's time to follow risk-minimizing techniques, they're wrong. The only way to succeed at anything is to manage true risk, which includes the chance of loss. Red-Blooded Risk presents specific, actionable strategies that will allow you to be a practical risk-taker in even the most dynamic markets.
- Contains a secret history of Wall Street, the parts all the other books leave out
- Includes an intellectually rigorous narrative addressing what it takes to really make it in any risky activity, on or off Wall Street
- Addresses essential issues ranging from the way you think about chance to economics, politics, finance, and life
- Written by Aaron Brown, one of the most calculated and successful risk takers in the world of finance, who was an active participant in the creation of modern risk management and had a front-row seat to the last meltdown
- Written in an engaging but rigorous style, with no equations
- Contains illustrations and graphic narrative by renowned manga artist Eric Kim
There are people who disapprove of every risk before the fact, but never stop anyone from doing anything dangerous because they want to take credit for any success. The recent financial crisis has swelled their ranks, but in learning how to break free of these people, you'll discover how taking on the right risk can open the door to the most profitable opportunities.
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AARON BROWN is risk manager at AQR Capital Management and the author of The Poker Face of Wall Street (Wiley), selected one of the ten best books of 2006 by BusinessWeek, and A World of Chance with Reuven and Gabrielle Brenner. In his thirty-year Wall Street career, he has been a trader, portfolio manager, head of mortgage securities, and risk manager for institutions including Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. He also served a stint as a finance professor and was among the top poker players in the world during the 1970s and 1980s. He holds degrees in applied mathematics from Harvard and in finance and statistics from the University of Chicago.
"Wickedly original, one of the most fascinating accounts I have ever seen. A rollicking and highly opinionated read." (Risk Professional, October 2011)
"No one who reads Red-Blooded Risk: The Secret History of Wall Street will ever again regard risk management as a necessary but unproductive appendage of the financial industry. Other authors have chronicled how quantitative finance influenced investment management, but Aaron Brown has made a compelling case for a far more profound economic impact. . . If Red-Blooded Risk: The Secret History of Wall Street dealt with nothing more than the inadequacy of models used in highly important activities, it would represent a valuable contribution to financial economics. Brown's book, however, covers a great deal more than econometric malpractice. Probably no other book offers as much insight into the process with so little resort to mathematical notation. Especially valuable are Brown's discussions of middle-office risk management and value at risk, comparatively recent innovations that are essential to understanding modern financial institutions. Readers of Red-Blooded Risk should be prepared to have many of their assumptions challenged. Red-Blooded Risk is one of the most original and thought-provoking books reviewed in these pages in the past 20 years. No one who reads it will ever again regard risk management as a necessary but unproductive appendage of the financial industry. Other authors have chronicled how quantitative finance influenced investment management, but Aaron Brown has made a compelling case for a far more profound economic impact."
--Martin S. Fridson, CFA Institute Publications Book Reviews
"Red-Blooded Risk mixes risk history and philosophy nimbly and provides a perspective that can be both refreshing and challenging (often on the same page). While the book is not without weaknesses, it is also brimming with original perspectives and controversial opinions. Those who work in risk management or quantitative finance will enjoy Brown's story-telling and expert perspectives, even if they do not share his views, while non-quants will find his insights and confessions to be a useful glimpse into the psyche and ethos of an influential group of early quantitative risk takers.
--Roger M. Stein, Research and Academic Relations, Moody's Corporation, as reviewed in Quantitative Finance (August 6, 2012)
