Rating: 
Summary: The ultimate insider view to the corruption of Wall Street!!
Review: I loved this book! I couldn't put it down! This book is the story of a young man who decides to make his millions on the front lines of Wall Street after getting his foot in the door of one of Wall Streets largest Hedgefunds, Cramer & Co. You will follow him on the roller coaster of huge gains and losses in the billion dollar industry of hedgefunds. In particular, you will see how Jim Cramer, Wall Street genius, and TV personality, bullies and manipulates his way into becoming one of America's most influential and successful hedgefund managers. As the obsenities and computer parts fly around their small trading room, you can fell the anxiety that his employees must have experienced. This well-written book will make you seriously question the ethics of Wall Street's "experts".
Rating:
Summary: Psycho Trader!!
Review: If you're naive enough to think that Wall Street is anything but an insider's game, read TRADING WITH THE ENEMY and have your illusions shattered once and for all. This brief rip puts you in the seat next to Jim Cramer as he screams and threatens his way to a fortune. As you'll see, this is one cat who'll do anything to make a buck. And, while it's extremely entertaining to read about a guy who smashes computer equipment, throws pencils at secretaries, insults colleagues and manipulates stock prices, you come away feeling that he's the kind of toxic human being you'd never want to spend more than five minutes with in real life. How Maier spent five years with him, I'll never know.At least he got a terrific book out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but Flawed
Review: I am giving the book three stars because of the five pages in the book that talks about the relationship between James Cramer and CNBC. The claim in the book that Cramer used the anchors at CNBC for his own ends gives readers an interesting behind-the-scenes look at Wall Street. The author makes a convincing case as to why Cramer and CNBC staff worked together in inappropiate ways that were not in the best interest of average investors. Hyping stoks on CNBC and then selling the same stocks in your personal account is wrong! Also, the part where Cramer gets tips from analysts about stock upgrades, etc before they are released to the public is a great bit of news. All believable. What I found to be not right with the book is the lack of writing skill and story development. Here we have a book that is filled with stories about Cramer yellling, being verbally abusive and throwing things. This is material best for water cooler conversation and does not find a true home in a book. The writing style is rather flat and the narrative at times seems to go no where. Furthermore, the book is streched to be completed at 200 pages, because of a seemingly lack of material. This is not in the style of Liar's Poker, but it does give readers a dark look at some of the happenings on Wall Street.
Rating:
Summary: Inside Wall Street "laid bare"...
Review: To say that Jim Cramer is "intense" masks the true nature of this man's character...if what Nicholas Maier tells us is true, the general public should be very worried that people like Cramer are handling billions of dollars of assets and have an important say in the country's financial security. I was literally appalled at the nature of the day trading depicted in the fast-moving world of hedge funds and can think of no reason why the SEC let this continue when they had a chance to stop it. This is the type of emotion, I'd wager, that Maier solicited when he wrote this otherwise fine account of life on Wall Street. "Trading with the Enemy" is a fast-paced and wide-open telling of what it was like to work at Wall Street for Cramer and Co. in the mid 90's under the psychotic oversight of Jim Cramer and a testament to the abuses of money and power that this type of environment sows. The story starts innocently enough with a young, seemingly un-motivated recent college grad who's interested in the American dream of making it rich in the stock market. Nicholas Maier uses his connections to procure a job at Cramer and Co., then the leading hedge fund on Wall Street. Once in, Maier learns very quickly just how this high octane world operates and starts a 5 year period of constant self-justification working for a maniacal, but otherwise brilliant stock market trader. The reader is led down the path of insider trading and we learn all about the ins and outs of trading thousands of shares of stock for major profit. We also learn that to make this kind of money, it requires an almost insane boss who's insecurities abound as he's able to dismantle the complex world of stock trading and see the market as others don't. Mental and sometimes physical abuses (he has to avoid flying computer monitors on more than one occasion) are the norm that Maier has to endure in this company, but so is the high-energy environment that he craves and becomes addicted to. Slowly, the mental anguish overtakes the addiction and Maier becomes one of the many casualties that Cramer lays waste to in his career. What this results in is an almost unbelievable story of being subjugated to a character that often refuses to take his medication (much needed I might add) and one that assumes the attitude of a general going to war...frought with all the tactics and betrayals that "everything is fair in war" surmises. Cramer knows no bounds (mentally or physically) in getting what he wants and goes berserk at something as comparetively trivial as selling thousands of shares at an eighth of a point lower than he thought. To compensate, Maier turns to drugs and finally decides that he's had enough...fortunately for us, he majored in Writing and Literature in college and pens a revealing expository that should be required reading for all young brokers. In fact, the only criticism of this work that I can come up with is that the story ends too quickly...we go from hearing about the initial stages of his substance abuse to his walking out the door in only a matter of a few pages. I would have liked him to expand on this a little more. To be fair, I suppose that one should read Cramer's account of this period ("Confessions of a Street Addict") to get his perspective, but the overwhelming theme won't change I'll bet. For those who want to learn about the inner workings of Wall Street, this book will be a powerful introduction. Fast paced and imminently readable, one comes away from this work with a sort of bitter taste...one that says that it takes this kind of personality (Cramer's) to control the market and to make major money when there could be alternatives that could be equally successful.
Rating:
Summary: Inside Wall Street "laid bare"...
Review: To say that Jim Cramer is "intense" masks the true nature of this man's character...if what Nicholas Maier tells us is true, the general public should be very worried that people like Cramer are handling billions of dollars of assets and have an important say in the country's financial security. I was literally appalled at the nature of the day trading depicted in the fast-moving world of hedge funds and can think of no reason why the SEC let this continue when they had a chance to stop it. This is the type of emotion, I'd wager, that Maier solicited when he wrote this otherwise fine account of life on Wall Street. "Trading with the Enemy" is a fast-paced and wide-open telling of what it was like to work at Wall Street for Cramer and Co. in the mid 90's under the psychotic oversight of Jim Cramer and a testament to the abuses of money and power that this type of environment sows. The story starts innocently enough with a young, seemingly un-motivated recent college grad who's interested in the American dream of making it rich in the stock market. Nicholas Maier uses his connections to procure a job at Cramer and Co., then the leading hedge fund on Wall Street. Once in, Maier learns very quickly just how this high octane world operates and starts a 5 year period of constant self-justification working for a maniacal, but otherwise brilliant stock market trader. The reader is led down the path of insider trading and we learn all about the ins and outs of trading thousands of shares of stock for major profit. We also learn that to make this kind of money, it requires an almost insane boss who's insecurities abound as he's able to dismantle the complex world of stock trading and see the market as others don't. Mental and sometimes physical abuses (he has to avoid flying computer monitors on more than one occasion) are the norm that Maier has to endure in this company, but so is the high-energy environment that he craves and becomes addicted to. Slowly, the mental anguish overtakes the addiction and Maier becomes one of the many casualties that Cramer lays waste to in his career. What this results in is an almost unbelievable story of being subjugated to a character that often refuses to take his medication (much needed I might add) and one that assumes the attitude of a general going to war...frought with all the tactics and betrayals that "everything is fair in war" surmises. Cramer knows no bounds (mentally or physically) in getting what he wants and goes berserk at something as comparetively trivial as selling thousands of shares at an eighth of a point lower than he thought. To compensate, Maier turns to drugs and finally decides that he's had enough...fortunately for us, he majored in Writing and Literature in college and pens a revealing expository that should be required reading for all young brokers. In fact, the only criticism of this work that I can come up with is that the story ends too quickly...we go from hearing about the initial stages of his substance abuse to his walking out the door in only a matter of a few pages. I would have liked him to expand on this a little more. To be fair, I suppose that one should read Cramer's account of this period ("Confessions of a Street Addict") to get his perspective, but the overwhelming theme won't change I'll bet. For those who want to learn about the inner workings of Wall Street, this book will be a powerful introduction. Fast paced and imminently readable, one comes away from this work with a sort of bitter taste...one that says that it takes this kind of personality (Cramer's) to control the market and to make major money when there could be alternatives that could be equally successful.
Rating: 
Summary: Captures the man!
Review: As the pages turn, I get a perfect visual of Jim Cramer screaming and waving his arms as he exhorts his team to maximize the profits in their hedge fund. It's a hedge fund as any viewer of Kudlow and Cramer would expect, with Cramer waving his arms, pulling at his tie, and screaming at the top of his lungs. It is easy to visualize the temper tantrums and computer terminals getting smashed. The book also describes Maier's descent into the madness of a hyperactive "blame the enemy" day trader. The personalities are clearly spelled out, and it's easy to understand the motivations of the key players. The book is easily accessible to the layman. The trading methodologies used are easily explained, as are the alleged improprieties commited by Jim Cramer. The book reads quickly, and is easily digested over a 3 hour flight. The one thing I struggle with is, "Is it true?" In the end, none of the formal charges against Cramer stuck, and no hard evidence was produced. To Maier's credit, he ends with a favorable review of Cramer's long term returns.
Rating:
Summary: OK, but gets repetitive
Review: Maier has written a somewhat interesting book here; it's not as bad as some here have said, but then again, Cramer's new autobiography is better, longer, and has a wider perspective. Maier's basic central theme is that the 5 years he spent working for the maniacal hedge-fund manager Jim Cramer was very difficult. He fills page after page with stories of Jim's maniacal antics and rages, which gets repetitive after a while. But in between those descriptions, he describes the inner workings of Cramer's hedge fund, from a grunt's perspective. There aren't a lot of insights here about the market -- it's mostly a tale about how Maier learned to survive while learning about how the market really works.
Rating:
Summary: rare look inside
Review: Just finished reading this book - makes a good read, could not put it down. Contains pretty good description of methods with which Jim Cramer made his incredible returns. Actually, it is a sad story - the author used his position of being a son of a good friend of the main investor to get this job, and Jim Cramer made a mistake of giving him a job. Both paid dearly - Nick Maier - by working in hell for 5 years, and Cramer - by having him exposed. Usually books like this are not being written because when major Wall Street firms fire people, they make the severance package conditioned on a commitment not to write a book, a movie, etc. Jim Cramer made a mistake, so we can have a look inside.
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