Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich
 

I just read this book a few weeks ago and thought it was one of them more fascinating books I have ever read. Just curious if anyone knew of any sites online where I could read more about the specifics of the financial "tactics" they were using in this book?

Re: Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich
 

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Just curious if anyone knew of any sites online where I could read more about the specifics of the financial "tactics" they were using in this book?

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I haven't read the book, only the Amazon synopsis. It states that they made all their money through arbitrage, which is buying something in one market and selling is instantly in another.

Investopedia on arbitrage

Re: Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich
 

Specifically, I believe the book was describing arbitrage based upon the lack of liquidity between Japanese Nikkei 225 index and the underlying companies that compose the index. The book doesn't go into details (Which is one of the reasons I prefered "Bringing Down the House"), but the general idea was that the main character would buy or sell options on the index while holding the underlying securities to take advantage of the small price differences (Or something like that).

Re: Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich
 

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[ QUOTE ]
Just curious if anyone knew of any sites online where I could read more about the specifics of the financial "tactics" they were using in this book?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't read the book, only the Amazon synopsis. It states that they made all their money through arbitrage, which is buying something in one market and selling is instantly in another.

Investopedia on arbitrage

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The first part of the book talks about the protagonist's experience with arbitrage in the Nikkei but then he follows his boss, whose name escapes me at the moment, to a hedge fund and he makes a killing (his f.u.) money by figuring out how the Korean market was going to realign their index and he shorts the position and makes a ton of money for the hedge fund. I probably didnt explain 100% correct but thats the gist of it. It was arbitrage I was primarily interested in. Apparently at that time there was some peculiarities in the Japanese market that made arbitrage trading pretty lucrative. Thanks for the link.