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(More customer reviews)I confess I didn't know who Todd Harrison was when I got this book. I'd been to Minyanville a few times and I thought that the iconic stock market characters Hoofy and Boos were fun. As a former finance professor turned trader who develops his own ideas, I wasn't likely to be receptive to his slender volume of reminiscences.
Instead, I was surprised and enthralled by the story of Todd's life starting with being brought up in a fractured family where his grandfather became his surrogate father. After a brief adolescent interlude with his estranged father, the story moves rapidly to the college years at Syracuse and thence to being a clueless entry-level hire at Morgan Stanley.
Clueless or not, he rapidly learns and builds relationships to become a star options and derivatives trader, first at Morgan, then at Galleon and finally at Cramer-Berkowitz. I found this book engrossing and impossible to put down as I read about his rapidly increasing financial rewards and his equally rapidly increasing cognitive dissonance and conflicts.
The writing is very straightforward and linear but along the way we learn about Todd's grandfather Ruby, his father's demons, Jim Cramer, September 11th and finally his journey from writing for the Street to putting together Minyanville.
This book reminds me a little of "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator". Both are slender volumes but Harrison's book is much more open about revealing his conflicts and demons. Maybe if Jesse Livermore could similarly have used writing as method of self-discovery his life might not have ended in suicide.
Could this all be a con? Could he be selling us a bill of goods as self-justification? I suppose so - but somehow I think not. I think we have actually been granted an honest insight into what it is to be Todd Harrison.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Other Side of Wall Street: In Business It Pays to Be an Animal, In Life It Pays to Be Yourself
Minyanville Mediafounder and former hedge fund honcho Todd Harrison shares amazing untold stories from Wall Street's hidden side. From the adrenaline rush of trading at Morgan Stanley, to trench warfare with Galleon and Jim Cramer to valuable lessons about money and life, Harrison provides unforgettable tales from the most tumultuous era in financial history!As seen on Bloomberg Television's "Taking Stock."
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