Trading with the Enemy: Seduction and Betrayal on Jim Cramer's Wall Street

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
If you've ever fantasized about working on Wall Street, Nicholas W. Maier's riveting, no-holds-barred account of his tenure at Cramer & Company will open your eyes to the profane, arbitrary, and sometimes brutal culture that reigns in our nation's financial capital. Take, for instance, the not atypical workday described in Chapter 7 of the book. Jim Cramer, Maier's boss, was sitting at his desk, scanning the headlines on his multiple computer screens, when one of the office secretaries approached him with a phone message. The message, it turns out, was from Cramer's psychiatrist, who had just phoned in a prescription to a local drugstore. Instead of simply taking the message, Cramer screams obscenities at the secretary and within moments launches into a vicious tirade that would probably seem extreme even to a volatile character like Tony Soprano. Here is how Maier describes the conclusion of Cramer's outburst: "Jim lifts a monitor off the trading desk, raises it high over his head, and lets it fall to the floor. The glass shatters, and the smoke rises from its hollow center. By this time, I know why he keeps a stack of new parts behind his desk. I can replace a screen in seconds flat."

Although the revelation of Cramer's destructive behavior gives this book a certain gossipy thrill, Maier's most disquieting revelations concern the ways in which the market and the media are manipulated by traders with overdeveloped egos and undernourished attention spans. Cramer himself became a public figure, appearing on the morning shows and writing for The New York Times, even as his firm seemed to careen wildly from investment to investment with little regard for long-term strategies. If you're an average investor trying to figure out how the market really works, Trading with the Enemy may be more eye-opening than a stack of the latest personal finance books. I have to admit that I also enjoyed Maier's book on a purely personal level. His description of life in New York, his less-than-perfect first apartment, and his desire for success (which kept him at Cramer & Company for five years) make this a story that many people will relate to. And yet, at the end, the image that dominates, that best encapsulates the action of this narrative, is of the smashed glass of Cramer's computer screen, with strands of dissipating smoke rising up from its hollow center. (Sunil Sharma)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In January of 1994, Nicholas W. Maier hopped on a train that took him from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived with his parents, to New York's Penn Station. With his wallet stuck in his sock, he headed down to the heart of the Wall Street district for a meeting with Jim Cramer that would change his life forever. For the next five years, Maier would work like a slave inside Jim Cramer's hedge fund, a limited partnership that included only the wealthiest investors, where rules were scarce and where, in his glory days, Jim Cramer managed almost half a billion dollars, raking in phenomenal returns." "Entranced by the game, Maier quickly rose from the office assistant fetching sandwiches from the deli downstairs to a trader playing with a fifty-million-dollar portfolio. But under the pressure of Jim's constant war, Maier's adrenaline rush wore off, and the dark side of Wall Street was revealed: Maier had become exhausted and money driven - at his worst moments swapping tranquilizers with his coworkers and passing out on a New York subway." This is a true insider's story - an honest, raw, page-turning account that takes us on a journey through the volatile world of hedge funds. From Cramer & Company to the brokerage houses and analysts to the reporters who cover the market action, we are shown a Wall Street where almost everyone is dirty - a world where even the SEC fails to maintain order.

SYNOPSIS

n January of 1994, Nicholas Maier hopped on a train that took him from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived with his parents, to New York's Penn Station. With his wallet stuck in his sock, he headed down to the heart of the Wall Street district for a meeting with Jim Cramer that would change his life forever. For the next five years, Maier would work like a slave inside Jim Cramer's hedge fund, a limited partnership that included only the wealthiest investors, where rules were scarce and where, in his glory days, Jim Cramer managed almost a half a billion dollars, raking in phenomenal returns.

Entranced by the game, Maier quickly rose up from the office assistant fetching sandwiches from the deli downstairs to a trader playing with a fifty-million-dollar portfolio. But under the pressure of Jim's constant war, Maier's adrenaline rush wore off, and the dark side of Wall Street was revealed: Maier had become exhausted and money driven -- at his worst moments swapping tranquilizers with his coworkers and passing out on a New York subway.

This is a true insider's story -- an honest, raw, page-turning account that takes us on a journey through the volatile, anything-goes world of hedge funds. From Cramer & Company to the brokerage houses and analysts to the reporters who cover the market action, we are shown a Wall Street where almost everyone is dirty -- a world where even the SEC fails to maintain order.

At the heart of this narrative is an incredible character study of Jim Cramer, one of Wall Street's brightest stars. Employing any means possible to make money, Cramer engaged daily in brilliant but questionable practices, ranging from blatantly unethical strong-arming to spreading false rumors and leaking important information. A typical day inside the fund would begin with Cramer's declaration, "I love the smell of money in the morning," followed by a boom-box serenade of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise." At the first sign of trouble, however, Cramer would turn paranoid and vicious, smashing phones and computer monitors and screaming insults that would leave even the toughest employees in tears.