Product Description

Describes the two year government undercover operation investigating corruption and illegal practices in the two Chicago commodity exchanges and culminating in the indictments of 46 industry professionals. Describes how these very complicated markets function and how their ``old-boy club'' style first created the problems and later shielded many of its members from investigation and prosecution. A true inside account, it explores rampant fraud and abuse in the futures markets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #437862 in Books
• Published on: 1991-06-17
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.12" h x 6.44" w x 9.22" l, 1.60 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 337 pages

From Publishers Weekly
At the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, brokers and traders in a $70-billion world market trade in foreign currencies, and buy and sell options and contracts for future delivery of commodities (corn, soybeans, cattle, pork), even make speculative bets on a stock-market index. As prices gyrate, huge sums are won or lost on a quick hand gesture or shouted quote. These markets are nominally self-regulated in a benign atmosphere of congressional junkets and campaign contributions, according to this jarring expose by two Chicago journalists. But, they aver, clubby, unofficial "floor rules" foster illegal broker/trader profits through "dual trading," after-hours price adjustments and the like. All this came to light in early 1989 after a two-year FBI investigation; indictments, trials and appeals are still underway.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In documenting the two-year-long investigation begun in 1987 by the FBI, Greising, a correspondent for Business Week , and Morse, a reporter for Knight-Ridder Fi nancial News , provide an exciting account of a successful sting operation that took place in Chicago's commodities and financial futures markets and that resulted in the indictments of 48 futures industry professionals. In addition to detailing this operation (which reads like a good mystery), the authors also discuss the history and operations of these markets, as well as the people who make them function, with particular regard to rules and regulations and how they are followed. Readable and revealing, this is a difficult book to put down. For general business collections.-- Steven J. Mayover, Free Lib. of Philadelphia Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Less than two years after federal "commod" squads obtained indictments against over 40 traders at the Windy City's two principal futures exchanges, volume remains as high as ever. Even so, Greising (a Business Week correspondent) and Morse (a reporter for Knight-Ridder Financial News) leave little doubt in this savvy, if discontinuous, overview that there were--and are--scams and double-dealing aplenty in the pits of the Chicago Board of Trade and Mercantile Exchange. The authors offer an authoritative account of the FBI investigation that sent four undercover agents into the trading rings to collect evidence of illegal practices. In addition to an episodic briefing on the sting from its 1987 inception through the first trial verdicts, Greising and Morse provide institutional histories of the essentially self-regulated CBT and Merc. The futures exchanges furnish the global economy a valuable price- discovery mechanism, but, run as old-boy clubs, they apparently also give floor brokers a license to steal from hedgers and speculators alike. The authors make a generally good job of explaining how venal traders defraud clients as well as the IRS. They also probe the political alliances and payoffs that ensure an anything-goes trading environment, and they don't spare federal prosecutors who inflated the significance of nickel-and-dime cases. The impact of their charges and reform proposals, though, is blunted by a fractured format that arrests the narrative flow to no discernible purpose at critical junctures. Also, the story's a long way from over. While the Chicago office of the US Attorney General can claim upwards of 30 scalps (via plea bargains and convictions), more than a dozen of the accused have been acquitted or given an interim pass by juries that could not reach verdicts. A knowledgeable, albeit less than cohesive, progress report on a consequential scandal. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.