Full Title: Backstage Wall Street: An Insider’s Guide to Knowing Who to Trust, Who to Run From, and How to Maximize Your Investments
Author: Josh Brown (Twitter @ReformedBroker)
Publisher/Date: McGraw-Hill (2012)
List Cost/Pages: $28 Hardcover / 256 pages
Cover Notes:
Wall Street is very good at one thing: convincing you to act against your own interests. And there’s no one out there better equipped with the knowledge and moxie to explain how it all works than Josh Brown. A man The New York Times referred to as “the Merchant of Snark” and Barron’s called “pot-stirring and provocative,” Brown worked for 10 years in the industry, a time during which he learned some hard truths about how clients are routinely treated—and how their money is sent on a one-way trip to Wall Street’s coffers.
Backstage Wall Street reveals the inner workings of the world’s biggest money machine and explains how a relatively small confederation of brilliant, sometimes ill-intentioned people fuel it, operate it, and repair it when necessary—none of which is for the good of the average investor.
Offering a look that only a long-term insider could provide (and that only a “reformed” insider would want to provide), Brown describes:
THE PEOPLE—Why retail brokers always profit—even if you don’t
THE PRODUCTS—How funds, ETFs, and other products are invented as failsafe profit generators—for the inventors alone
THE PITCH—The marketing schemes designed for one thing and one thing only: to separate you from your money
It’s that bad . . . but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Brown gives you the knowledge you need to make the right decisions at the right time.
Backstage Wall Street is about seeing reality for what it is and adjusting your actions accordingly. It’s about learning who and what to steer clear of at all times. And it’s about setting the stage for a bright financial future—your own way.