Description
This was the question that superbroker Peter Brant posed to R. Foster Winans, an influential stock-market columnist on The Wall Street Journal, in October 1983. "You tell me what's going to be in the 'Heard on the Street' column the day before it appears, and you'll become a millionaire."
The 'Heard on the Street' column is read by an estimated two and a half million people every business day. Peter Brant knew that stocks mentioned in the column often rise or fall the day the paper hits the newsstands, and planned to use the advance information to boost his sagging brokerage commissions. But Winans never got his million dollars. Nearly two years later, Brant had been drummed out of the brokerage business and Winans faced 18 months in jail.
Trading Secrets is Winans's first hand account of one of the most fascinating and dramatic scandals ever to have hit Wall Street. It presents a unique behind-the-scenes look at one of the most famous newspapers in the world. It reveals the inner workings of stock markets; it is about fear and greed; it shows the power of financial information and tells how insider trading is used and abused to create and tear down fortunes and lives.
The characters are diverse: Winans, the debt- ridden, underpaid reporter, seduced by the promise of instant wealth; Brant, the broker, who changed both his name and his lifestyle to infiltrate the society of the super-rich; his blue-blooded mentor, a globe-trotting New York lawyer with big spending habits; and Brant's best friend, an upper-middle-class businessman who was ignorant of the ways of The Street and mesmerised by Brant's mastery of the market. Through an unlikely series of events, they become players in a tension-charged story more fascinating than fiction.
Trading Secrets brings to the financial world all the drama and intrigue of a Paul Erdman novel. It is also a cautionary tale and a timely warning for Britain in the aftermath of the Big Bang when American business habits, attitudes and practices have become increasingly common.
ISBN:9780333445051
