Flash Boys by Michael Lewis is entertaining, educational, and eye-opening. Lewis does a phenomenal job of describing complex financial structures by breaking down key concepts into easy-to-understand language for his readers.
Pairs With: homemade chocolate chip cookies because real estate just might be a better investment than the stock market 🤷♀️
Overview
Flash Boys by Michael Lewis is a captivating story about the hidden truth of the stock market. Lewis uncovers and explains how the market is being scammed by high-frequency traders (HFT) and big banks to make billions at the expense of the average investor and their retirement accounts. If you enjoyed The Big Short by Lewis then you would most definitely enjoy this one as well!
Multiple Stories
In typical Lewis fashion, this book follows a few different stories centered around explaining one main theme. In this case, it’s high frequency trading in the stock market. Lewis shows readers the whole picture by exploring everyone from the guys laying the fiberoptic cables, to the computer code developers, to the day traders, and to the big bank executives. He takes readers behind the scenes each step of the way and explains how the stock market is vastly different now that computers are at the helm. Lewis covers everything from microseconds to dark pools. This book will even have you rooting for a few good guys, Brad Katsuyama and his team.
Complex Topics
This book is equal parts educational, entertaining, and eye-opening.
Some readers may be turned off by complex financial books and assume they’re boring or that they might be over their head BUT don’t do that with this one. Lewis does an impressive job of explaining each concept and he reexplains them throughout the book. (Which would typically be annoying but when it comes to complex financial structures – repetition is incredibly helpful!)
So while high-frequency trading, latency arbitrage, dark pools, and microseconds might sound complex or boring – Lewis shares with readers how fascinating (and corrupt) it really all is!
Conclusion
Some reviewers have stated this book made them very angry. However, I did not have that experience.
I found it to be… expected. After reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer very little is shocking when it comes to creative individuals taking advantage of loopholes that will make them billions (or ensure they keep their billions). (Be sure to check out Dark Money if you’d like to learn more about how the ultra-rich use the charity tax loophole to their benefit. But be prepared to dislike the Koch brothers even more.)
Lewis does a great job of holding the reader’s attention throughout the whole book while also describing complex topics. Flash Boys is worth a read for anyone who enjoys learning about the stock market and likes rooting for the good guys!
Have you read this one or any of Lewis’ other books? Let me know in the comments which one was your fav!!
