Summary of Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 The secret of Eckstein’s business was to ride your losses until they turned into gains. He would buy the futures, sell the bills, and wait for the two prices to converge. But instead of converging, the gap widened even further.

#2 Meriwether’s life’s work was to understand and trade financial futures. He had grown up in a Democratic, Irish Catholic stronghold of Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. He knew virtually everyone in the area, a self-contained world that revolved around the basketball lot, soda shop, and parish.

#3 Meriwether’s escape from Rosemoor was by means of a singular passion: golf. He was a standout member of the Mendel school team and twice won the Chicago Suburban Catholic League golf tournament. He also caddied at the Flossmoor Country Club, which involved a significant train or bus ride south of the city.

#4 Until the mid-1960s, bond trading had been a dull sport. But in the late 1960s, the epidemic of inflation destroyed the world of fixed relationships. By the end of the 1970s, firms such as Salomon were slicing and dicing bonds in ways that Homer had never dreamed of.