Backstage Wall Street (PB)

Book excerpt: Chances are you haven't been making the best investing decisions. Why? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WALL STREET WANTS IT "[T]he always irreverent author of the Reformed Broker blog has written an excellent narrative that shares all of your broker's dirty little secrets. Much like Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker captured the essence of 1980s institutional Wall Street, Brown's Backstage Wall Street recreates the boiler room retail brokerage culture of the 1990s and early 2000s in vivid color." --FORBES "With a smirk, a lashing wit, and an appropriate irreverence, Joshua Brown gives voice to what all investment professionals are--or should be--secretly thinking." --MICHAEL SANTOLI, Barron's columnist "The pages of this book are filled with colorful exposés of misconduct in the way Wall Street presents and sells itself (and its financial products offerings!). . . . Run don't walk to read Brown's chronicles of deception [perpetrated by] those wonderful folks on Wall Street, who nearly bankrupted the world's fi nancial system a few short years ago." --DOUGLAS A. KASS, Seabreeze Partners Management, Inc. "Everything you've ever read about Wall Street is a total lie. Everyone is lying to you every day. Until you read this book." --JAMES ALTUCHER, Formula Capital and author of I Was Blind but Now I See "Joshua wants Wall Street to be awesome. You can feel it every day on his amazing blog and in this great book. He is happy to shout when Wall Street drives him crazy. I guarantee you will enjoy this book that describes the action behind the business of Wall Street and his own experiences along the way." --HOWARD LINDZON, Lindzon Capital and founder of StockTwits "Joshua Brown may be the funniest writer on finance today, but Backstage Wall Street could make you cry more than laugh. The buffoons, manipulators, and incompetents Brown parades before us are the stewards of our retirement accounts....What's important is that investors understand the choices before them. Backstage Wall Street goes a long way to taking us backstage, while making us laugh in the process." --BARRON'S About the Book: 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