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Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street |  | Author: Kate Kelly
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $11.84
as of 11/21/2009 10:22 CST details
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Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 12896
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 1591842735
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.660973
EAN: 9781591842736
ASIN: 1591842735
Publication Date: May 12, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The shocking fall of Bear Stearns in March 2008 set off a wave of global financial turmoil that continues to ripple. How could one of the oldest, most resilient firms on Wall Street go so far astray that it had to be sold at a fire sale price? How could the guys who ran Bear so aggressively miscalculate so completely?
In this vivid and dramatic narrative, Kate Kelly takes us inside Bear's walls during its final, frenzied 72 hours as an independent firm. Expanding with fresh detail from her acclaimed front- page series in The Wall Street Journal, she captures every sight, sound, and smell of those three unbelievable days.
For decades, Bear had proudly recruited "P.S.Ds"- employees who were poor, smart, and had a deep desire to become rich. An elite family or Ivy League diploma didn't matter. Were you willing to do almost anything to make money for the firm? Were you tough enough to be a street fighter?
Bear's leaders were arrogant and didn't play nice. But their style had made them a fortune, and had helped Bear survive every crisis from the Great Depression to the dotcom bubble.
Yet as the subprime mortgage crisis began to brew, the firm's key executives descended into civil war. Kelly reveals fresh, never-before-told details about the moves that led to that brutal final weekend.
With a style as riveting as it is enlightening, Street Fighters is the definitive account of a once-great firm's demise, and the human folly that led to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
 Utterly Compelling--Perfect Companion Piece to TOO BIG TO FAIL November 18, 2009
Michael K. Crowley
This book is a tremendous, swift--almost frenzied--account of the last four days in the life of Bear Stearns. It is a fast, lucid and exhilarating read that fills in the gaps glossed over by Sorkin in his excellent book TOO BIG TO FAIL. As mesmerizing as TOO BIG TO FAIL is, it pays only passing attention to the failure of Bear.
This book by Kate Kelly, unlike a number of other business books lately, is carefully and well written. Not a word is wasted. With sparse, direct and blunt prose, we get a contoured sense of many of the key players not only at Bear but also we get a sense of Paulson, Geither and Bernanke.
The writing is stark and unadorned, but it serves its purpose, and the ultimate effect is that she has authored a book that literally is hard to put down.
An important contribution to the rapidly growing library that will allow us to get a better understanding of our current financial crisis.
 The ripple effect November 16, 2009
Mary G. Longorio (Eagle Mountain, UT)
Street Fighters is the hour by hour accounting of the demise of Bear Stearns over the weekend of March 14 through 16, 2008. When the news that creditors were no longer extending Bear Stearns credit, the power brokers on Wall Street began to wheel and deal. In the midst were the heads of Bear Stearns, going from incredulity to fear to resignation. Riding on the wave of real estate loans and speculation, the bear had move to the front of the big boys on the street. But their tactics had made them vulnerable and not won them many friends. With each rumor the board goes to yet another lender or commission to get money, help even a bailout. Kate Kelly published this book just a few months after the firm's demise. It came out of her reporting for the Wall Street Journal and uses her front row seat and insight to make a complex labyrinth understandable. It is raw energy combined with fear and loathing. As an outsider, I am amazed by the sheer hubris and disconnect that allowed this firm to overextend and fail...and began the ripple effect that affects the people like me. Kelly has made the indefensible understandable...but is impartial, letting the demise speak for itself.
An Easy Read October 20, 2009
Steven Schwartz (johnson city, ny United States)
Pros: I flew through this book. If you want the basics of the Bear Stearns Story here it is in a little over 200 easy pages.
Cons: The "meat" of the story is basically a long magazine article. Interspersed throughout are asides about so and so's childhood and so and so's pot smoking habit. I would have appreciated a little more technical analysis.
An Ok Read as the Market Faltered September 15, 2009
Kenneth H. Marks (Raleigh, North Carolina)
In general I think the author did a good job of setting-up the background and recounting the final hours of Bear Stearns. I enjoyed gaining insight into the cultures and personalities of the various investment banks, and especially Bear. This was particularly insightful if you've read some of the other books about our market's history and trials...i.e. When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management. There are a lot of parallels from a decade earlier. My only complaint is that it could have been shorter, but overall, I'd recommend investors read it. Kenneth H. Marks, lead author of The Handbook of Financing Growth: Strategies, Capital Structure, and M&A Transactions (Wiley Finance)
john b September 10, 2009
John A. Banno
Very good book with hour by hour account of happenings. As former banker(retired) it was riviting.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
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