How To Be a Rogue Trader: A Penguin Special from Portfolio

Authors: Gapper, John
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
BISAC/Subject: BIO024000, BUS077000, BUS004000
ISBN: 9781101570920, Related ISBNs: 110157092X, 9781101570920
Classification: Non-Fiction
Number of pages: 40,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis: A compelling, topical e-book on the motives and patterns of rogue traders, and the investment banking system that hosts them, by John Gapper of the Financial Times.
 
Nick Leeson at Barings. Jerome Kerviel at Societe Generale. John Rusnak at Allied Irish Banks. And now the thirty-one-year-old Kweku Adoboli, a director on a derivatives desk who allegedly ran up $2.3 billion in losses at UBS. These are the rogue traders who have bought banks to their knees and global financial systems to a halt. Each time, the banks declare themselves to be innocent victims of a fraud. But why do traders keep on committing apparently senseless crimes, with little benefit apart from higher bonuses and an enormous risk of ending up in prison? And why do banks, which should have learned the tricks of the traders, keep being deceived?
 
In this short e-book, the Financial Times associate editor John Gapper unlocks the mystery by delving into the evolutionary risk-taking instincts of both humans and animals—from yellow-eyed junco sparrows in Arizona to honeybees. He reveals how banks encourage their traders to evade risk limits and shows how the rogue traders merely mimic the strategies used by their firms to seem more profitable than they really are.
 
A rogue trader is often an outsider who starts in a lowly role and secretly gambles with a bank's money in a bid to become a star. Gapper traces patterns of behaviour and personality that could be used to catch them before disaster strikes. But do the banks really want to? And are the rogue traders just the symptoms of a financial system gone rogue?
Sign up for our literacy platform for reading at home

LightSail includes up to 6,000 high interest, Lexile aligned book titles with every student subscription. Other titles are available for individual purchase.

Watch the power of

Lightsail in action

×

SUPPORT GROWING READERS

Immediately Engage Students
Immediately Engage Students
Simple intuitive design has classrooms reading within minutes.
Exponentially Grow Reading Time
Exponentially Grow Reading Time
Students love the LightSail experience and naturally spend more time reading.
Accelerate Literacy Development
Accelerate Literacy Development
Students reading 25 minutes a day on LightSail are seeing 2+ years of Lexile growth in a single year.

LightSail Education is a comprehensive Lexile and standards-aligned, literacy platform and digital e-book library. Including multimodal learning functionality and featuring books from leading publishers, LightSail holistically assesses and nurtures each student on their reading and writing-to-learn journey, throughout elementary, middle, and high school.

*LightSail offers a 2,000 or a 6,000 title bundle with its student subscriptions. Other titles are available for individual purchase.