The Greatest Trade Ever

[HenryTo]

"The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History." This will be required reading for MarketThoughts.com members for Christmas. Note that Greg Zuckerman is a long-time financial journalist for the WSJ.

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Trade-Ever-Behind-Scenes/dp/0385529910/ref=amb_link_85440851_4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0VBBPEGRNAYHMHM13KD5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=497393411&pf_rd_i=3#noop

[rffrydr]

Author interview:

http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/News/Surveillance/vtf3LyrwRIVo.mp3

Yes many saw but few capitalized...very few institutions. The housing market was just plain hard to short--as you would expect of an illiquid, slow-moving asset. I got it with PMI and sorta with BAC and MCO. The new futures contract just didn't make sense. A key point is that the big money was absolutely aghast at the prospect of paying to play. No cheap WOTM puts, no basis throwaway to a competitor in the quarterly "league-tables"--THAT was the real trade in an age of "Greed Born of Fear." (see above).
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!