Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read For Investors
Review: After reading the first chapter of Lowenstein's book, Clancy's recent offering went onto the shelf. Lowenstein has written a concise and insightful recounting of the rise and fall of one of the largest and "smartest" investment firms created in modern times. However, the book is not just a well written story of failure. I can't decide whether When Genius Failed belongs in my library's psychology, management, mathematics, or business history section. It presents important lessons in each of these topics. All investors will gain from a careful read of this classic.
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Summary: "The Barbarians At The Gate" For The 1990s
Review: This book reads like a horror story: we know John Merriwether and his arbitrageurs shouldn't ratchet up their leverage again and again but we can't tear our eyes away when they do it. Already knowing what ultimately happens to the Fund does nothing to alleviate the suspense and trepidation as a wave of panics begins to richocet from seemingly unrelated financial markets to trigger a worldwide financial crisis with LTCM square in the middle. Lowenstein's detailed description of the daily losses the Fund experienced will take your breath away.All in all, this book provides a vivid portrait of how sensible, seemingly "safe" investment strategies can go terribly wrong when greed overcomes prudence and positions are pushed to the limit. Yet LTCM is not the only one who comes off bad here: Goldman Sachs is portrayed as shameless front-runners, Alan Greenspan looks like he is more out of touch than Ronald Reagan and Wall Street brokers and bankers appear as rational as rabbits in heat as they fall over themselves to extend credit to LTCM without charging hardly any margin whatsoever. This "easy credit" is what let LTCM leverage their assets up to an incredible 100X by the time of their downfall. I promise you this: "When Genius Failed" will become "The Barbarians At The Gate" for the 1990s. And it will rightfully go down as one of the best books of business history of the last 25 years.
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe Genius Failed,but not their Honesty
Review: The book relays the events in an entertaining manner; although the character assassinations are extensive especially when these observations are second hand. The principals of LTCM never mismarked their book during the crisis to hide the truth and dealt with it in a forthright manner.That is a truer sense of character.The markets are riddled with stories of dishonesty in the face of adversity. Was the risk at LTCM too big? In hindsight,yes. The partners paid a price for that with their net worth and with their confidence;but they never lied about the risk. This fact should not be overlooked.
Rating: 
Summary: The Dunbar book is much better
Review: Lowenstein's book has its interesting moments, but they are too few for my taste.
From an analytical point of view, Dunbar's work on the same subject is vastly better -- more depth AND more breadth. Dunbar explains much that Lowenstein simply assumes we know -- things like what is an interest-rate swap, and why the parties on both sides of it are acting rationally in entering into such a contract, WHEN they both are.
From a narrative point of view, Dunbar has a more compelling emphasis, but both authors have something of value to contribute. Dunbar sticks closely to the partners themselves -- giving fascinating bio. sketches and psychological insight for Meriwether, Scholes, Merton, and Mullins. Lowenstein takes a very different approach, because he seems to have gotten his story mostly from the "counter-parties," the folks outside LTCM who dealt with it on a regular basis. So his book belongs to Herbert Allison and David Komansky (of Merrill Lynch) and Jon Corzine (then of Goldman Sachs, now a New Jersey politician), and others in similar positions.
This emphasis provides the book's interesting moments, and is why I can give it two stars. It is a worthwhile addition to the literature developing around this inciddent.
Politically, Lowenstein has his axes to grind. He wants to discredit Fed chairman Greenspan, the late philosopher Ayn Rand, and the efficient markets hypothesis. He scores no real hits on any of those targets, but his sloppy efforts to do so are distracting.
Rating: 
Summary: High human drama, engagingly described
Review: This book is an excellent account of the LTCM debacle. It is especially good in describing the human side of the players involved. Given the obsession to privacy by most of the central characters of LTCM, this book gives a lucid portrayal on how events evolved, and the persons behind those decisions. One couldn't help but wonder, if we were in the same position as the LTCM partners, having achieved their successes, would we do things differently? On the other hand, this book does have its limitations. For people who are not familiar with the modern financial derivatives and "risk management" techniques, Lowenstein gave a comprehensible, but rather incomplete explanation. This won't hurt the book's readability, but readers certainly won't understand any better about options and swaps after reading this book, either. The "leverage" used by LTCM, central to both its success and downfall, is mainly due to the use these derivatives than simply saving the "haircut" as described in the book. There are also some incorrect statements, though relatively minor, such as Merton's insistence of "continuous time" model without any sudden price jumps. Just for the record, it was exactly Merton himself who first proposed a "jump" model for pricing financial assets in 1976. You can find this in most derivatives textbooks. Derivatives regularly get a bad rap for causing financial disasters, and LTCM is just the latest in a string of headline news over the years. This is quite unfortunate. Americans probably don't realize that many, many mutual funds and pensions funds use derivatives to "reduce" their investment risks. Lowenstein's book shows that it's really the human factor lying at the root of these fiascos. If only it could give the public a better understanding of the true nature of these modern financial instruments......
Rating:
Summary: Meriwether: Take This Hubris And Shove it
Review: The reporting and research in this book are impeccable. The book is financial story-telling at its best: an almost perfect portrait of LTCM and its far flung Empire with offices in Connecticut and London. And that is what makes this book a compelling tale about the interconnected forces in global finance. It is much more than a story about the dangers of leverage and the demise of LTCM. It is probably the best case study we have so far of the end of geography in the global capital markets. The book gives us a much more sobering account of Meriwether than the one we get in Lewis's Liar Poker. The analysis has heft, yet it is not heavy-handed with figures like Dunbar's book on LTCM, which is the only other one available on the subject. The characters are alive. Even Meriwether's Catholic school buddies reflect on what it was like to know him as a young man. According to Meriwether's mom, he was picking stocks with his brother at a young age. And the irony: Meriwether is launching a new arb fund. I wonder if they will entice the Central Bank of Italy to put money in the fund again! This goes to show you that you don't need a degree from the London School of Economics, Harvard or MIT to make extended, leveraged bets. But without the players and their high-brow backgrounds, When Genius Failed would have been a less interesting story.
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Summary: Readable and insightful history of LTCM
Review: The story of LTCM's rise and fall is a compelling one not only for people interested in finance, but for anyone fascinated by the spectacle of very smart people losing enormous sums of money. Lowenstein's book makes this story accessible by glossing over some of the technical details, a tradeoff of readability for depth, but still provides insight into the causes of LTCM's collapse. I recommend reading both this book and Nicholas Dunbar's excellent _Inventing Money_: Dunbar provides more technical explanations, while Lowenstein has a richer story to tell about the people involved.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: An interesting and detailed reading covering the collapse and the meltdown of Long Term Capital. Richly entertaining and well written. Contains useful lessons for anyone in the asset management business.
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Summary: Read the excerpt in the Asian Wall Street Journal
Review: Not yet read this book but I am sure I will. Saw it reviewed in the AWSJ this morning and looks great.
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Summary: When Genius Failed is very good story about John Meriwether
Review: When Genius Failed is very good story about John Meriwether who you don't recommend to work with further. both heroes are experts in their field, but don't trust them. "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" is not only about The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management. it is about our society. Roger Lowenstein is a writer who is taking on any dramatic challenge and deliver every turn and plot point at the shortest time frame. the result is a very highly and innovative book not just for a reader who is interested in the inner workings of wall street, but also for everyone with a sense of drama and knowledge.
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