The Quants. The maths geniuses who brought down Wall Street: Scott Patterson

How the global economy was brought to the brink of collapse

Quants` are quantative analysts, and in this narrative of brilliance and ambition, journalist Scott Patterson follows the rise of these young maths geniuses let loose in Wall Street`s candy shop as they zoom from the bottom of the Street`s pecking order to its pinnacle... and then set in motion ever-widening market catastrophes.

The Quants examines the economic collapse on a panoramic level, placing the breakdown of the financial system within the larger context of a world ruled by intellectual hubris. At once a window into the strange world and larger-than-life personalities of Wall Street`s most powerful traders, and a chronicle of how a financial sector once known as an elite aristocracy became the playground of the technocrats, this book is much more than a simple `revenge of the nerds` story. It traces the history of the phenomenon, beginning with a 1950s gambler named Thorp who believed that the markets weren`t random, that `systems` could beat the Street the same way that dealers could be beaten in Vegas, all the way to Thorp`s modern-day successors, spilling out of the world`s elite technical and business schools bent on using formulae and computers to rule the markets.

A story that plays out on the biggest stage imaginable, with characters who have billions of dollars and the world`s economy riding on their actions, The Quants explains in its gripping narrative how the global economy was brought to the brink of collapse.