The Greatest Trade Ever

Journalist Gregory Zuckerman tells how hedge fund manager John Paulson concluded in 2006 that housing prices and subprime mortgages were badly inflated and set out to profit from their fall. Paulson came from mergers and acquisitions and knew little about real estate, and colleagues and investors dismissed him. Like a few other contrarians, including Jeffrey Greene and Michael Burry, he bet heavily against risky mortgages, using credit default swaps, and lost money at first before markets began to collapse in the summer of 2007. By the end of that year his firm had earned more than $15 billion. Zuckerman wrote with the cooperation of the secretive Paulson, and the 2009 book became a best seller translated into nine languages.

It appears on serial entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda's list of recommended books, from a profile on how he reads almost 100 books each year.