Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst: A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market

This is a very valuable book for those who want to know what Wall Street analysts do, or at least what they did in this period. As a former Wall Street analyst, I can attest that it has the ring of truth. The author comes across as being overly obsessed with Jack Grubman, however. Getting revenge seems to have been one of his strongest motivations in writing this book, and he certainly has succeeded.Dan Reingold is vulnerable to criticism himself. He pats himself on the back for putting "Hold" recommendations on stocks that fell sharply, and that he claims he thought were probably going to fall sharply. Why not say "Sell?" His defense seems to be that he was spending his time finding stocks that were Buys, and if a stock was not a "Buy" there was no point in writing a report on the stock.At the end of the book he makes some recommendations about how to reform the role of Wall Street analysts. He makes well-founded points about the flaws in Spitzer's "reforms". But his own recommendations are poorly thought out. He does not seem fully to appreciate the economics behind research departments.

Very detailed and relatively well written book. Having spent 18 years working for AT&T myself, I was able to follow the author's stories with their constant twists and turns. However, this may be more difficult for the average reader.

Definitely one of the best books I have ever read. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in an equity research career and that's why I started reading this one. It has so many great stories mostly from the author's own experience which revealed the under table business during the dotcom bubble period. I made a lot of very helpful notes which helps with my understanding in valuing stocks and with upcoming interviews. I won't hesitate to read it one more time soon.

I am interested in the topic, so it got my attention. But it is one storyline book. At certain points dull, at others Dan comes out as an outright naive guy for a professional analyst, especially at the end. He is obsessed by quantitative methods, applies them to individual companies and completely misses the big picture of a market bubble... Hard to believe. Anyway, this comes to my mind:"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." John Kenneth Galbraith

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the worlds of Telecom or Wall Street will enjoy and learn from this insider's tale. It is at once a very broad and very personal story, with many astounding behind-the-scenes revelations from the boom/bust years of the US telecom industry, and the incredible financial ride it took. A morality play and cautionary tale, recommended for any business reader. Reingold should also be commended for his calls/recommendations for genuine Wall Street reform.

This book describes the activities of Wall Street bankers, analysts, Telecom CEO's and other money manipulators during the Telecom Boom and Bust of the late 1990's. It relates, in some detail, the insider corruption and illegal money manipulation that permeated Wall Street and the Investment banks of the era. After reading the book I can truly say there isn't one human being therein with any redeeming qualities. Simply put, they are ALL greedy ugly money grubbers, including the author. Sadly, we live in a system that rewards this activity. Many individuals just got away, scot free, with serious crimes and incredible amounts of money for their efforts. I remember the era like it was yesterday. I had been a small investor like so many other Americans. I was lucky as I sold out my entire equity portfolio in Jan of 2000. The dot com boom made absolutely no sense! I returned to the markets on March 13th, 2003 and was lucky. However, the Wall Street money manipulation and corruption pretty much exists today just as it did during this period. Nothing has really been accomplished as far as real reform is concerned. The insiders own the market! The SEC, Accounting firms, regulatory departments, financial news coverage and other forms of checks and balances are still in the bag for Wall Street. Too much easy money for them to make by hook or by crook.....The author did mention Arthur Levitt and the SEC's lack of any regulatory review at this time. I remember it well. In fact, the SEC added fuel to the rampant fire of insider trading and fraud with their very loose interpretations of the rules. It was a wink and a nod to the insiders. Levitt, as dirty as the rest, should have been investigated! Nothing has changed and today's crop of Wall Street criminals may even be worse than their predecessors... if that's possible. In fact, anyone looking at the 2008 financial debacle knows that criminal greed and market manipulation ruled The Street like NEVER before. This very nearly brought down the entire US and world economic system. Still... Wall Street rumbles on continuing to manipulate markets and engage in questionable transactions. Caveat emptor! It's just a matter of time and with a nation that's carrying 30 Trillion in debt the risk becomes very real.

It was an interesting read. I have to say I became more than a little disillusioned. To hear that the great fund managers of the 80s and 90s had an extremely unfair advantage in that they received critical information before the masses. To think I gobbled up their books and naively thought they were looking out for me.Nice perspective.

This book explains why I never took the job at the big brokerage firm in fact listening to Dan Reingold makes me believe it's a good thing I never took that big step.

This Kindle read gives a first hand account of the pressures and incentives to bend the rules about sharing insider information through biased reporting of what is meant to be objective, research based advice to institutional investors as well as retail brokers on Wall Street which further undermines the notion that small investors can get a fair crack at reaping the rewards of betting their savings on the stock market.

Really scary and a person is left with a a very negative feeling toward investment sales people and brokers in general;.