NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The story of the billionaire trader Steven A. Cohen, the rise and fall of his hedge fund, SAC Capital, and the largest insider trading investigation in history—for readers of The Big Short, Den of Thieves, and Dark Money and fans of Showtime’s Billions.NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY JENNIFER SENIOR, NEW YORK TIMES • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence and FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2017 The rise over the last two decades of a powerful new class of billionaire financiers marks a singular shift in the American economic and political landscape. Their vast reserves of concentrated wealth have allowed a small group of big winners to write their own rules of capitalism and public policy. How did we get here? Through meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling,
New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar shows how Steve Cohen became one of the richest and most influential figures in finance—and what happened when the Justice Department put him in its crosshairs.
Cohen and his fellow pioneers of the hedge fund industry didn’t lay railroads, build factories, or invent new technologies. Rather, they made their billions through speculation, by placing bets in the market that turned out to be right more often than wrong—and for this they have gained not only extreme personal wealth but formidable influence throughout society. Hedge funds now manage nearly $3 trillion in assets, and competition between them is so fierce that traders will do whatever they can to get an edge.
Cohen was one of the industry’s greatest success stories. He mastered poker in high school, went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched SAC Capital, which he built into a $15 billion empire, almost entirely on the basis of his wizardlike stock trading. He cultivated an air of mystery, reclusiveness, and extreme excess, building a 35,000 square foot mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. On Wall Street, Cohen was revered as a genius.
That image was shattered when SAC became the target of a sprawling, seven-year government investigation. Labeled by prosecutors as a “magnet for market cheaters” whose culture encouraged the relentless hunt for “edge”—and even “black edge,” or inside information—SAC was ultimately indicted in connection with a vast insider trading scheme, even as Cohen himself was never charged.
Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the gray zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the U.S. economy. It’s a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the government’s pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of modern Wall Street.
A riveting and true life thriller, "Black Edge" is the inside story of Steven Cohen and the spectacular rise and fall of his hedge fund SAC capital.
“A modern version of
Moby-Dick, with wiretaps rather than harpoons.”
—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times “Excellent.”
—The Economist “If you liked James B. Stewart’s
Den of Thieves, Sheelah Kolhatkar’s thrilling
Black Edge should be next on your reading list.”
—The Wall Street Journal “A lot of people do not trust Wall Street. They regard it as a moneymaking machine for those who work there, which has little interest in practice in its stated aim of channeling capital into businesses and helping them to grow for the broader benefit of society. For such skeptics, Steven Cohen is Exhibit A.”
—John Gapper, Financial Times “A richly reported, entertaining tale about the cat-and-mouse game between the government and Cohen.”
—Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times Book Review “Masterfully deconstructing a massive web of Wall Street operating,
New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar retraces the seven-year government investigation that took down the firm—though not the man—in a true-life thriller with Shakespearian stakes. . . . Her chilling account of a blighted industry is as mesmerizing as a human story as it is as a financial one.”
—Fortune “There are few financial-industry struggles as titanic as the one portrayed in these pages.”
—Reuters BreakingViews “One of the best books about the 2008 financial meltdown.”
—The Globe and Mail“Well-written, with pointed characterizations of the ambitious players and their motives, this book is highly recommended for readers interested in finance, crime, and politics.”
—Library Journal (starred review)“A tour de force of groundbreaking reporting and brilliant storytelling, a revealing inside account of how the Feds track a high-profile target—and, just as important, an unsettling portrayal of how Wall Street works today.”
—Jeffrey Toobin, New York Times bestselling author of American Heiress “
Black Edge is not just a work of major importance, it is also addictively readable—and horrifyingly compelling. Sheelah Kolhatkar pulls back the curtain on the cheating, corruption, and skulduggery that underlie large swaths of the hedge fund industry and some of Wall Street’s most fabled fortunes. This book is as hard to put down as it is to stomach.”
—Jane Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Money “Fast-paced and filled with twists,
Black Edge has the grip of a thriller. It is also an essential exposé of our times—a work that reveals the deep rot in our financial system. Everyone should read this book.”
—David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of Z “
Black Edge is a real-life thriller about the government’s attempt to get the legendary trader Steve Cohen on insider trading charges—and the lengths to which he goes to elude them. Using deep reporting and top-notch storytelling, Sheelah Kolhatkar is able to shed new light on one of the least known and most fascinating characters on Wall Street.”
—Bethany McLean, co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room 
