The Man Who Solved the Market, Gregory Zuckerman
The Man Who Solved the Market, Gregory Zuckerman
7 Rating(s)
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
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The Man Who Solved the Market
How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

Bestseller

Author: Gregory Zuckerman

Narrator: Will Damron

Unabridged: 10 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 11/05/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

The perfect gift for the avid reader on your list: the unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it.

Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world.

As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit.

The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.

*Includes a PDF of Appendices 1 and 2 with charts

About The Author

Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever and The Frackers, and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He's a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jacob on December 14, 2021

If you, like me, have already scoured the interwebs for tidbits on Jim Simons and his Long Island quant shop, then there is not too much new stuff here in terms of the history of the company, but the story is still nice to revisit, and there are insights not presented anywhere, in particular some vi......more

Goodreads review by Tim on December 28, 2020

Every few months, I get a LinkedIn message from a headhunter regarding a discreet search by a secretive firm in the New York area. The message will reference a team of leading computer scientists and mathematicians. Some will use adjectives like "renowned" and "legendary" and phrases like "total com......more

Goodreads review by Marco on August 19, 2020

Very disappointing. I read it in 10 hours or so, at least 8 were a waste of time. The title is surely chosen by the publisher as a marketing gimmick. It's not *that* much about Jim Simons, in fact past certain years (the 80s?) it's about Brown and Mercer, who came from IBM where they did natural lang......more

Goodreads review by Niranjana on June 22, 2020

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was exactly what I was looking forward to reading- the growth of quant-based trading in finance through the lens of arguably the most successful firm in the field. It's important to note what this book is NOT about. Firstly, it certainly doesn't just trace the life......more

Goodreads review by Thiago on August 07, 2020

I had always believed in the efficient market hypothesis. This book convinced me that I was wrong: it's not that there aren't inefficiencies to be exploited in financial markets, it's just that humans suck at seeing them. The same cognitive biases that create those inefficiencies in the first place......more


Quotes

“Captivating.” —New York Times
 
“A compelling read.” —The Economist
 
“Reads like a delicious page-turning novel.” —Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg
 
“One of the most important stories of our time.” —Financial Times
 
“Zuckerman brings the reader so close to the firm’s inner workings that you can almost catch a whiff of the billionaire’s Merit cigarette.” —Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg

“A gripping biography of investment game changer Jim Simons… readers looking to understand how the economy got where it is should eat this up.” —Publishers Weekly

"Worthwhile reading for budding plutocrats and numerate investors alike." —Kirkus

“Immensely enjoyable.” —Edward O. Thorp, author of A Man for All Markets
 
“An extremely well-written and engaging book . . . a must read, and a fun one at that.” —Mohamed A. El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town
 
“Leave it to the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Zuckerman to lay open the golden mysteries of quantitative investing. With this fine, humane, and eye-opening book, he’s well and truly broken the code.” —James Grant, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer

"Page-turning tale…bravura storytelling." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success