The maths geniuses who brought down Wall Street

The Quants

The compelling story of the computer whizzkids behind the global economic meltdown.

Mr Patterson is onto a big story that already begs follow-up

The Quants ... radiates with hubris, high stakes and pricey toys

[an] intriguing history of the Quants...[Patterson] explains how hedge funds combined techniques of arbitrage and hedging using complex computer-driven models (one was named Midas) to reduce the risk of making losing bets

Patterson paints a clear picture of the history and evolution of quantitative trading on Wall Street, before shifting focus to the 'crisis before the crisis' in which a number of quant funds almost collapsed in 2007...definitely worth reading for an in depth analysis of one of the points in recent financial history where things may have started to go awry

Scott Patterson worked for several years as a financial reporter at the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York.

You're a genius. Nobody plays the financial markets better than you. What could possibly go wrong? 
 
Quants - quantitative analysts - were the maths masterminds let loose on Wall Street in the belief that their brilliant, impregnable computer programs would always beat the market. But as the catastrophic events of 2007 and 2008 showed, their seemingly failproof methods were little more than ticking timebombs. 
 
Inspired by the 'Godfather of Quants' - maths-professor-turned-gambler Ed Thorp, who began applying skills learned at the Vegas tables to the financial markets back in the 1950s - the quants achieved extraordinary success and massive wealth. This book charts their rise from obscurity to boom and then to bust, explaining why they were so confident - and how they got it so disastrously wrong.

Scott Patterson

An invaluable piece of timely journalism that should be read by regulators and anyone with a cent in the stock market.

A great read … and raises an important question: could the trading machines destroy the capital markets?

As an exposition of Wall Street nerdcraft, Dark Pools truly delivers ... Patterson's tales of ingenuity and cunning read like a spy novel

Financial journalist Scott Patterson looks at the real world of AI trading machines and crafts a story equally as riveting

Journalistic in style, nice scary ending ... Any serious CFO, CIO, Chancellor, market regulator or investor should read this

Gruelling and terrifying, Patterson questions the future of the human inquisitive mind

A fascinating and completely terrifying tale … It is a terrific read, both for a history of high frequency trading well told, and for a different kind of perspective on what’s gone so wrong with finance. If you really want to scare yourself, pair it with Robert Harris’ The Fear Index

The rise of A.I. trading machines and the looming threat to Wall Street

Dark Pools is the pacy, revealing, and profoundly chilling tale of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots – many so self-directed that humans can’t predict what they’ll do next.It’s the story of the blisteringly intelligent computer programmers behind the rise of these ‘bots’. And it’s a timely warning that as artificial intelligence gradually takes over, we could be on the verge of global meltdown. 
 
‘Scott Patterson has the ability to see things you and I don’t notice.’ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, New York Times bestselling author of Antifragile, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan

Scott Patterson

Praise for Dark Pools

An invaluable piece of timely journalism that should be read by regulators and anyone with a cent in the stock market.

[A] gripping, excellent expose

A great read … and raises an important question: could the trading machines destroy the capital markets?

An invaluable piece of timely journalism that should be read by regulators and anyone with a cent in the stock market.

[A] gripping, excellent expose

A great read … and raises an important question: could the trading machines destroy the capital markets?

An invaluable piece of timely journalism that should be read by regulators and anyone with a cent in the stock market.

[A] gripping, excellent expose

A great read … and raises an important question: could the trading machines destroy the capital markets?

Books by Scott Patterson

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