Markets: Who Plays, Who Risks, Who Gains, Who Loses

Markets tells financiers, and households become the elements of economics--prices, production, growth, stagnation. Major tour.

Recent Wall Street insider-trading scandals are only the tip of the iceberg, notes bestselling financial author Mayer ( The Bankers , The Lawyers ) in this penetrating study of world equity, commodity and currency trading prior to the October 1987 stock-market meltdown. He points to commodity-trader price-hiking collusion, among other abuses, and to brokerage houses that compete with their own fiduciary clients. With lively quotes and anecdotes, Mayer describes the major markets: for example, Chicago's trading pits with frantic speculation in pork bellies, wheat, cattle, bonds, exchange rates and "index futures" (a gamble on a market as a whole); the structured and currently complacent world of Tokyo bankers and brokers (the Japanese in 1986-87 bought three-fifths of the U.S. deficit-financing bonds); London's mum's-the-word Eurodollar traffic and morning gold-price "fixing"; Switzerland's silent vaults; and the New York Stock Exchange, where contrary to general wisdom, the author finds, program trading (automatic sell orders) did indeed intensify the October debacle.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mayer's thesisthat an understanding of modern markets is essential to an awareness of modern societyis as pertinent after the October 1988 crash as it was before. Mayer ( The Bankers ) focuses on the New York Stock Exchange and the various commodity exchanges, giving particular attention to the trading of stock futures and options. The crash occurred while Mayer was writing this book. Despite its catastrophic consequences, the crash provided an excellent example of market operations, and more importantly, of what can go wrong. Mayer demonstrates for lay readers as well as specialists the role that program trading played in the crash and offers ideas to prevent future meltdowns. A complex subject handled well by a seasoned financial journalist. Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Academy Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.