Rogue Trader

by Leeson

This is the true story of how Nick Leeson caused the collapse of Barings Bank. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. "Penguin Readers" are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from "Easystarts" with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three "Contemporary", "Classics" or "Originals". At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying "Penguin Readers Factsheets" which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class.

56 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2000

Reviews

[Rikko215 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I myself spent four years in the securities industry, I could understand what happened in the past without stringent regulations of trading. Massive scandals such as Barings Bank made what futures, options tradings are today.

Nick Lesson, the author of this book, became a star trader at Barings Bank in Singapore region, regardless of not having a bachelor's degree in a high-ranked university. Although I could relate to his struggle, it terrified me that such an unskilled trader could work in the front and back office in SIMEX, hiding huge losses into account 88888. After all, the Barings Bank could have trained him as a professional, educated him to be an ethical trader.

This paperback was a rare nonfiction book in the business world and gave me a fresh insight. (I was probably reading too many literatures.)

[隻眼簽到 · Rating 4 out of 5]

不少商業情境詞彙
Nick Leeson被媒體稱為Rogue Trader，他為英國的Barings Bank操作期貨和選擇權買賣，是明星營業員。但實際上，他隱藏的虧損約達二億(應該是英磅)，最後並使得該銀行宣布倒閉。
諷刺的是，即使到最後，金融檢查機構似乎都沒真正搞清楚這件事，他們把罪責更多的歸到Barings銀行，但Nick Leeson在這本自傳裡表白，這一切都是他搞出來的：“There was more than one reason for the failure of Barings, But the most important reason was all the money that they sent me. By the end of February 1994, this was about $600 million. They thought that I had to pay SIMEX. Really, about three-quarters of the money went to cover the 88888 losses.”
由於自己對商業非常陌生，在這本書裡看到了不少商業情境詞彙，也算頗有收穫。例如：future(期貨); back office(負責結清買賣的後台部門); option(選擇權); settlement(結清); share(股份); meet(如期償付); audit(審計); house account(經紀人自己的帳戶); auditor(查帳員); dealings(交易，商業往來); yen(日幣)....。

[Kingfan30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for my other half as they always found the story interesting and watched the film a few times. The comment on completing was that it was quite basic. I hadn’t realised that I had picked up a simplified telling of the story. Now I don’t really understand trading so thought this might be easier for me to understand than a more complex telling. It’s a quick read at just over 50 pages and is quite unbelievable that this happened.

[Kanit Charoensri · Rating 4 out of 5]

เรื่องกระชับ แต่อยากได้รายละเอียดที่ละเอียดมากกว่านี้น่าจะต้องอ่าน้ล่มเต็มที่เขียนโดยเจ้าของเรื่อง