Confidence Game

The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.
* Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging and human drama
* Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street's best-known investors
* Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models and a blind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Street careening toward disaster
Confidence Game is a real-world "Emperor's New Clothes," a tale of widespread delusion and one dissenting voice in the era leading up to the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.
Christine Richard is a reporter with Bloomberg News whose work has been recognized by The New York Press Club and The Newswomen's Club of New York.