The Greatest Trades of All Time: Top Traders Making Big Profits from the Crash of 1929 to Today

The Greatest Trades of All Time

Top Traders Making Big Profits from the Crash of 1929 to Today
By Vincent W. Veneziani  

Financial and commodity markets are characterized by periodic crashes and upside explosions.  In retrospect, the reasons behind these abrupt movements often seem very clear, but generally few people understand what's happening at the time of the moves, and fewer still have the conviction to make a big bet to capitalize on their unique insights. However, some top traders and investors have the ability to stand apart from the crowd, embrace a view that is contrary to other market players, and the willingness to make a big bet.  When markets break their way and there's a mad rush to get in or out of the market by the general public, the traders who got in early make the huge profits.  

The Greatest Trades of All Time: Top Traders Making Big Profits from the Crash of 1929 to Today (Wiley; Oct. 2011; $45.00; 978-0-470-64599-4) Author Vince W. Veneziani, a trader and writer on markets, financial news, hedge funds, and economics for financial publisher Markets Media, describes how top traders made huge profits during the most momentous market events of the past century.  From the 1929 stock market crash to the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown, this book chronicles how a select few traders anticipated market eruptions and positioned themselves to reap huge profits. 

Traders and events discussed include:

• Paul Tudor Jones, who shorted the stocks prior to October 19, 1987, the most severe one-day crash since 1929
• George Soros, who made an estimated $1 billion shorting the British pound during a currency crisis in the 1990s
• Jim Chanos, who spotted Enron's fraud early on and shorted the stock prior to its complete collapse
• John Templeton, whose career was bracketed by two amazing trades: buying undervalued U.S. stocks near the end of the Depression, just prior to World War II, and shorting Internet stocks just prior to the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2001
• John Paulson, who shorted subprime mortgages in 2008, capitalizing on the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble
• Jesse Livermore, who shorted stocks and made a fortune in the 1929 stock market crash

Veneziani describes the economic and financial forces that led to each market cataclysm and how these individual traders perceived what was happening beforehand and decided to place big bets, often at great risk and in opposition to consensus opinion at the time.  This book brings to life important historical moments in the financial markets and provides contemporary traders and investors insight on how great traders make great trades.

The Greatest of All Time is a fascinating historical narrative on how big traders profited during financial market upheavals from one of the top business experts out there.  It is for anyone interested in the history of trade and profit and for anyone looking to learn from some of the best traders in our history.