Synopses & Reviews
Four years after his #1 bestseller
The Big Short, Michael Lewis returns to Wall Street to report on a high-tech predator stalking the equity markets.
Flash Boys is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post-financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, the flash boys band together and set out to reform the financial markets. This they do by creating an exchange in which high-frequency trading — source of the most intractable problems — will have no advantage whatsoever.
The characters in Flash Boys are fabulous, each completely different from what you think of when you think "Wall Street guy." Several have walked away from jobs in the financial sector that paid them millions of dollars a year. From their new vantage point they investigate the big banks, the world's stock exchanges, and high-frequency trading firms as they have never been investigated, and expose the many strange new ways that Wall Street generates profits.
The light that Lewis shines into the darkest corners of the financial world may not be good for your blood pressure, because if you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you. But in the end, Flash Boys is an uplifting read. Here are people who have somehow preserved a moral sense in an environment where you don't get paid for that; they have perceived an institutionalized injustice and are willing to go to war to fix it.
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"Michael Lewis is a genius, and his book will give high-frequency trading a much-needed turn under the microscope." Kevin Roose, New York Magazine
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"Dazzling... guaranteed to make blood boil... riveting." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
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"A beautiful narrative, so well-written. You've got to get this." Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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"Important to public debate about Wall Street... in exposing what one of his central characters calls the 'Pandora's box of ridiculousness' that financial exchanges have become." Philip Delves Broughton, The Wall Street Journal
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"Michael Lewis knows how to tell a story." Vanity Fair
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"Remarkable... Michael Lewis has a spellbinding talent for finding emotional dramas in complex, highly technical subjects." Financial Times
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"Who knew high-frequency trading was such a sexy subject?" Bloomberg Business Week
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"Michael Lewis is one of the premier chroniclers of our age." Huffington Post
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"If you own stock, you need to read Flash Boys... and then call your broker." Entertainment Weekly
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"Flash Boys richly deserves to be the first chapter in a new discussion of market rules and abuses....Lewis raises troubling and necessary questions." The American Conservative
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"When it comes to narrative skill, a reporter's curiosity and an uncanny instinct for the pulse of the zeitgeist, Lewis is a triple threat." James B. Stewart, New York Times
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"[Lewis] is a top-flight storyteller." Lev Grossman, Time
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"A tour de force that will grab and hold your attention like the best of thrillers." Jon Talton, Seattle Times
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"Lewis writes about the resilience of underdogs, even in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. He's doing essential work, and anything that embarrasses fat cats and encourages reform is a flash in the right direction." Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press
Synopsis
Michael Lewis returns to the financial world with a new book that gives readers a ringside seat as the biggest story in years prepares to hit Wall Street.
Synopsis
Flash Boys is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post-financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, the flash boys band together and set out to reform the financial markets. This they do by creating an exchange in which high-frequency trading--source of the most intractable problems--will have no advantage whatsoever.
The characters in Flash Boys are fabulous, each completely different from what you think of when you think "Wall Street guy." Several have walked away from jobs in the financial sector that paid them millions of dollars a year. From their new vantage point they investigate the big banks, the world's stock exchanges, and high-frequency trading firms as they have never been investigated, and expose the many strange new ways that Wall Street generates profits.
The light that Lewis shines into the darkest corners of the financial world may not be good for your blood pressure, because if you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you. But in the end, Flash Boys is an uplifting read. Here are people who have somehow preserved a moral sense in an environment where you don't get paid for that; they have perceived an institutionalized injustice and are willing to go to war to fix it.
About the Author
Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of Liar's Poker, The Money Culture, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game, The Big Short, and Boomerang, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.