The Weekend That Changed Wall Street

PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN
THE WEEKEND THAT CHANGED WALL STREET
Maria Bartiromo is anchor of CNBC’s Closing Bell (M–F, 3–5 p.m. ET), and anchor and managing editor of the nationally syndicated Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo, the most watched financial news program in America.
In 1995, Bartiromo became the first journalist to report live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She has covered Wall Street for more than twenty years. She joined CNBC in 1993 after five years as a producer, writer, and assignment editor with CNN Business News.
She has received numerous prestigious awards, including a 2008 News and Documentary Emmy for her coverage of the financial collapse. She received a second Emmy Award for her 2009 documentary, Inside The Mind of Google and was awarded a Gracie Award for a special report Greenspan: Power, Money & the American Dream.
In 2009, the Financial Times named her one of the “50 Faces That Shaped the Decade.” Bartiromo was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame Class of 2011, the first journalist to be inducted. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2005.
She is the author of several books, including The 10 Laws of Enduring Success and Use the News.
Bartiromo writes a monthly column for USA Today. She has written a column for BusinessWeek and Milano Finanza, as well as Individual Investor, Ticker, and Reader’s Digest magazines. She has been published in the Financial Times, Newsweek, Town & Country, Registered Rep, and the New York Post.
Bartiromo is a member of the Board of Trustees of New York University. She also serves on the board of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of New York, and the Board of Governors of the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
Bartiromo graduated from New York University, where she studied journalism and economics. She served as an adjunct professor at NYU Stern School of Business for the fall 2010 semester.
Follow Maria on Twitter@mariabartiromo
Visit www.mariabartiromo.com


The Weekend
That Changed
Wall Street
And How the Fallout Is Still Impacting Our World
MARIA BARTIROMO
with Catherine Whitney
PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN


PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in the United States of America by Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2010
This paperback edition with a new epilogue published 2011
Copyright © Maria Bartiromo, 2010, 2011
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Bartiromo, Maria.
  The weekend that changed Wall Street : an eyewitness account / Maria Bartiromo, with Catherine Whitney.
   p. cm.
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN: 978-1-101-54741-0
  1. Financial crises—United States—History—21st century. 2. Bank failures—United States—History—21st century. 3. Investment banking—United States—History—21st century. 4. Global Financial Crisis, 2008–2009. I. Whitney, Catherine. II. Title.
  HB3722.B375 2010
  330.973’0931—dc22     2010026892
Designed by Jaime Putorti
Title page image courtesy of istockphoto.com
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Dedicated to the next generation…
Emerging from colleges and business schools across America, to take your place in a system that is challenged but still great.
Learn from our mistakes, with wisdom,
creativity, humility, and integrity.


CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Eyewitness to the Crisis
PROLOGUE
Riding High Before the Fall
ONE
Nightmare on Liberty Street
TWO
The Bubble Machine
THREE
Zombies at Lehman
FOUR
Down to the Wire
FIVE
Death Sentence and Champagne
SIX
Fallout
SEVEN
Popcorn and Dominoes
EIGHT
The Aftershocks
NINE
A Greek Tragedy
TEN
Capitalism in the Balance
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index


INTRODUCTION
Eyewitness to the Crisis
Every weekday I broadcast my show Closing Bell from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The air inside the NYSE is electric. The pace can be frantic, especially as we approach the ringing of the closing bell at 4:00 p.m. As I watch the traders hunched over their terminals and listen to the dull roar of their voices in the background, I feel a sense of awe. I am standing at the apex of the world’s financial system. Everything that happens on the Big Board has consequences for billions of people, and I get to witness it all.
I realized long ago that what takes place at the NYSE is more about humans than about numbers. I know many people’s eyes glaze over when they think about the financial system. It feels so abstract and unwieldy. The jargon alone is difficult to master—puts and calls, market makers, derivatives. But in the aftermath of the collapse of Wall Street that occurred in September 2008, people did understand that the value of their homes declined precipitously, that their retirement plans bled money, that their jobs were less secure, that their retail customers had disappeared, that business and home loans were no longer available. They saw that because of the actions of some of America’s largest financial firms, their own