Wall Street
Book

Wall Street

The Markets, Mechanisms and Players

Richard Roberts
Bloomberg Press, 2003
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Background
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Investors invariably greet each new Wall Street scandal with shock and dismay. But scholar and author Richard Roberts reminds readers that fraud is nothing new in the U.S. financial industry. Tracking miscreants from Charles Ponzi to Enron, Roberts succinctly outlines scams that have separated investors from their money. His overview of Wall Street fraud is the most compelling part of this book, which is mostly a textbook-style primer that outlines the structure of Wall Street. Overall, Roberts focuses on describing Wall Street’s various stages of development, sectors and markets, perhaps with too little narrative thread or fresh analysis. getAbstract recommends this as a thorough introduction to U.S. financial industry that offers some insight into its scandals.

Summary

From Modest Beginnings to Soaring Heights

Wall Street is both a very specific place – a thoroughfare in lower Manhattan – and a wide-ranging industry that encompasses securities, commercial banking, asset management and insurance activities throughout the U.S. The securities industry, the sector most closely associated with Wall Street, includes the investment banks that create financial products and the broker-dealers that sell them. The Street’s other industries maintain lower profiles. Commercial banks take deposits and make loans. Asset managers aim to make as much money as possible for insurance companies, pension funds and mutual funds. Wall Street typically defines its activities as “front-office” or “back-office.” Front-office activities – business development, sales, analysis – generate revenue and glamour. Back-office activities – processing transactions and claims – tend to be routine and less glamorous.

While Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Toronto are major North American financial hubs, Manhattan is at the heart of the financial sector. Some 325,000 people worked in finance, banking and insurance in New York City in 2003. That number dropped from 378...

About the Author

Richard Roberts is on the faculty of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Sussex. His books include The Bank of England 1694-1994 and City State.

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