Rogue Trader

fascinating listen

really enjoyed this book, couldn't stop listening I wanted to know the next piece of the puzzle. recommended.

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At best it’s a good story

The best I can say is it is a good story. I found it to be a bit “not my fault” when in reality a crime of this magnitude can only be driven by greed and a sense of inferiority.
No matter how you look at it people lost investments through this crime in fact I’d imagine many lost everything but I don’t believe I ever heard an apology for his actions.

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where was the end?

started well and was interesting but disappointed at the abrupt finish didn't feel like there was any ending

Intriguing account of a extraordinary event.

The story of how Nick Leeson destroyed Barings is almost a modern morality tale about one lie can lead to a mountain of lies: and hearing how he managed over months to dig himself, and his company in deeper and deeper is like watching a spectacular slow-motion car-crash. Leeson comes over as a man who wasn't even greedy, just trapped by his own risk-taking personality and fear of owning up. And who was aided and abetted by an jaw-droppingly gullible and slack senior management team who never checked up on him, never questioned his increasingly absurd stories, and never stopped advancing him more and more money. Barings sounds like it was run more like a private social-club than a global financial enterprise.

Leeson shows a good deal of sympathy for himself, which may annoy some readers. But he's also very frank about his own failings and the scale of the damage he managed to do as a result of his crazy gambling to try and extract himself from a hole that he kept sinking deeper and deeper into. It's also worth noting that the initial catalyst for his descent was an attempt to protect a junior employee from getting sacked for an error, not to make himself rich.

The narrator is competent, and the story itself is well told: even if Leeson sometimes goes off on a few too many tangents about his personal life and his nights out with the lads.

Really good read

A first hand account of the collapse of Britain's oldest merchant.... From the person who collapsed it...

Fantastic insight

Loved it, fantastic insight into the simex market, and the slippery slope into deceit and fraud.

Could not stop listening!

It's an amazing story, well written and superbly narrated...I could not stop listening! I am French and had absolutely no difficulties in listening and understanding this incredible take.

Really enjoyable

A really good book. Brutally honest and enough info to put the fear of god into anyone who tracks markets. I'll listen to this again.

Only half the story

Having lived through the news stories of this in my younger days, and recently watched Nick Leeson on Big Brother, I was looking forwards to hearing about the after effects, his time in prison and how he put his life back together. Big problem, the book stop just as he is arrested. Obviously leaving enough to tell for a second book which is a bit annoying really.

The book is ok, but far to much technical financial language that I understood about 10% of!