The Greatest Trade Ever cover art

The Greatest Trade Ever

How One Man Bet Against the Markets and Made $20 Billion

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The Greatest Trade Ever

By: Gregory Zuckerman
Narrated by: Marc Cashman
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'The definitive account of a sensational trade' Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short

Autumn 2008. The world's finances collapse but one man makes a killing.

John Paulson, a softly spoken hedge-fund manager who still took the bus to work, seemed unlikely to stake his career on one big gamble. But he did - and The Greatest Trade Ever is the story of how he realised that the sub-prime housing bubble was going to burst, making $15 Billion for his fund and more than $4 Billion for himself in a single year. It's a tale of folly and wizardry, individual brilliance versus institutional stupidity.

John Paulson made the biggest winning bet in history. And this is how he did it.

'Extraordinary, excellent' Observer

'A must-read for anyone fascinated by financial madness' Mail on Sunday

'A forensic, read-in-one-sitting book' Sunday Times

'Simply terrific. Easily the best of the post-crash financial books' Malcolm Gladwell

'A great page-turner and a great illuminator of the market's crash' John Helyar, author of Barbarians at the Gate

Business Investing & Trading Professionals & Academics Stocks Investing Banking

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All stars
Most relevant
Loved hearing all that unfolded behind the scenes in the GFC, a very well written book

Great story , great performance

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Having seen the film I wondererd how good this would be , and it was great. Many insights into Wall Street and its many characters. Well explained about very well read.

A fascinating read

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I don't know where I got the idea that this would be a more heavyweight explanation of the events in The Big Short. This book needed an editor. Maybe a different writer. I switched off somewhere in the first chapter after a particularly unbearable paragraph repetitively fawning on its main character. "Paulson was clever and intelligent" did it for me. This was towards the end of a long list of why he was attractive to women. I realised that this book was not about to get better. Surprised Penguin had anything to do with it.

Poorly written

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