Street Smarts

On Wall Street, the pressure to perform and the ethical dilemmas that accompany it did not fade away with the insider trading scandals of the 1980s. As headlines in recent years attest, criminal proceedings, regulatory complaints, and customer litigation continue to mar the reputation of the banking and securities industries. This book is a forceful call to action for "Wall Street" leaders to strengthen and protect their shareholders' value by instituting and maintaining much higher professional standards.

The authors — with their dozens of years as insiders on Wall Street — cast a revealing eye on corporate and individual conduct in financial institutions and markets. They identify the major issues of professional conduct confronting the banking and securities industries today — including misrepresentation, market rigging, insider trading, money laundering, whistleblowing, and conflicts of interests — as they recount the lessons of scandals and rogue behavior that have rocked even the most venerable firms on the Street.

Smith and Walter argue that it is not enough for firms to rely on surveillance and compliance efforts to prevent their people from stepping over the line of legal and appropriate conduct; reputations in the finance world are too important. Connecting professional conduct to shareholder value, the authors call for immediate action. The industry, they contend, needs to create an environment in which each firm develops its leaders and individual managers to take responsibility for shaping and upholding the standards through creative and supportive employee development and retention programs.

Nothing less than the future of the industry is at stake. Street Smarts will help bankers, securities analysts, traders, and investors understand what needs to be done now to foster an open, responsible corporate culture that creates long-term value and higher returns.

1. A Walk on the Dark Side
2. Regulation, Competition, and Market Conduct
3. Caveat Emptor and the Retail Investor
4. Playing with the Big Boys — Wholesale Transactions
5. Market Rigging
6. Trading on the Inside
7. Conflicts of Interest
8. Kickbacks, Payoffs, and Bribes
9. Financial Secrecy and Money Laundering
10. Whistleblowing
11. Zookeeping

Talks about the financial marketplace and its (lack of) ethics.