It's a fun read. ( )

This book is about the people that saw the 2007-2008 American house market crash coming, and also how to benefit from it. The main protagonist, John Paulson ended up making billions of dollars, but this book also talks about those that, while being right, either didn't have the money to capitalize, the guts to wait until the crash, or wasn't prepared to go against the common opinion.

It's an interesting topic, but I'm afraid the book isn't that enjoyable to read because of the way it's structured. It seems to be somewhat of a rush job, as if being the first book on the topic was more important than being a good book on the topic. There are many repetitions (I don't know how many times the book mentions that Mr Paulson uses the bus every now and then) and a lot of the content seem to be filler text, listing participants on various parties in the financial aristocratic circles.

What this book doesn't talk about is the "subprime loans" (loans to people that can't afford the loans, and therefore charged a higher interest) and how they came to be. There are a few (one or two) examples of real people that ended up with loans they really couldn't afford but not many details and while the book, or people in the book, blame the legislation, there are not many details.

Still, I've given it three stars out of five, but that is mostly because I don't know in what other book I could have had this information. ( )

Completísima historia sobre el crack de las hipotecas subprime, centrada en los que apostaron contra ellas y ganaron. Se parece mucho a The Big Short, de Michael Lewis, aunque es a la vez más completo y menos ágil en su estilo de escritura. Aún así es muy interesante. ( )

Arrived Lausanne

While Zuckerman's treatment is too heavy on the personalities and too light on the technical details for my taste, The Greatest Trade Ever is an easy read and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. It's a good complement to The Big Short, since much of the book focuses on John Paulson's part of the story. It's probably also a good one to "read" via audiobook, since it's a bit chatty and you won't miss much if you get a little distracted while driving or doing the dishes. ( )