Today's top financial-risk professionals have come to rely on ever-more sophisticated mathematics in their attempts to come to grips with financial risk. But this excessive reliance on quantitative precision is misleading--and it puts us all at risk. This is the case that Riccardo Rebonato makes in Plight of the Fortune Tellers--and coming from someone who is both an experienced market professional and an academic, this heresy is worth listening to. Rebonato forcefully argues that we must restore genuine decision making to our financial planning, and he shows us how to do it using probability, experimental psychology, and decision theory. This is the only way to effectively manage financial risk in a manner congruent with how human beings actually react to chance. Rebonato challenges us to rethink the standard wisdom about probability in financial-risk management. Risk managers have become obsessed with measuring risk and believe that these quantitative results by themselves can guide sound financial choices--but they can't. In this book, Rebonato offers a radical yet surprisingly commonsense solution, one that seeks to remind us that managing risk comes down to real people making decisions under uncertainty. Plight of the Fortune Tellers is not only a book for the decision makers of Wall Street, it's a must-read for anyone concerned about how today's financial markets are run. The stakes have never been higher--can you risk it?

Today's top financial professionals have come to rely on ever-more sophisticated mathematics in their attempts to come to grips with financial risk. But this excessive reliance on quantitative precision is misleading--and puts everyone at risk. In Plight of the Fortune Tellers, Riccardo Rebonato forcefully argues that we must restore genuine decision making to our financial planning. Presenting a financial model that uses probability, experimental psychology, and decision theory, Rebonato challenges us to rethink the standard wisdom about risk management. He offers a radical yet surprisingly commonsense solution: managing risk comes down to real people making decisions under uncertainty. Plight of the Fortune Tellers is a must-read for anyone concerned about how today's financial markets are run. In a new preface, Rebonato explains how the ideas presented in this book fit into the context of the global financial crisis that followed its original publication. He argues that risk managers are still stuck in a probabilistic rut, and need to engage with the structural causes of real events.

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these "games"?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a "must read." So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

An in-depth look at how to account for the human complexities at the heart of today’s financial system Our economy may have recovered from the Great Recession—but not our economics. The End of Theory discusses why the human condition and the radical uncertainty of our world renders the standard economic model—and the theory behind it—useless for dealing with financial crises. What model should replace it? None. At least not any version we’ve been using for the past two hundred years. Richard Bookstaber argues for a new approach called agent-based economics, one that takes as a starting point the fact that we are humans, not the optimizing automatons that standard economics assumes we are. Sweeping aside the historic failure of twentieth-century economics, The End of Theory offers a novel perspective and more realistic framework to help prevent today's financial system from blowing up again.

“The rise and fall of Venice’s empire is an irresistible story and [Roger] Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler.”—The Financial Times The New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea charts Venice’s astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which sees the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between are three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance, during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grow into the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. “[Crowley] writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and sieges off the page.”—The New York Times “Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice’s past glory with Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and infectious enthusiasm.”—The Wall Street Journal

A rural Kentucky teenager comes of age in the summer of 1969 in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Nameless, Kentucky, in 1969 is a hardscrabble community where jobs are few and poverty is a simple fact—just like the hot Appalachian breeze or the pests that can destroy a tobacco field. RubyLyn Bishop is luckier than some. Her God-fearing uncle, Gunnar, has a short fuse and high expectations, but he’s given her a good home ever since she was orphaned at the age of five. Yet now a month shy of her sixteenth birthday, RubyLyn itches for more. Maybe it’s something to do with the paper fortunetellers RubyLyn has been making for townsfolk, each covered with beautifully wrought, prophetic drawings. Or perhaps it’s because of Rainey Ford, her black neighbor who works alongside her in the tobacco field and with whom she has a kinship—despite the disapproval of others. RubyLyn’s predictions are just wishful thinking, not magic at all, but through them she’s imagining life as it could be, away from the prejudice and hardship that ripple through Nameless… “A voice rich and authentic, steeped in the somber beauty that defines life in the South.”—David Joy, author of When These Mountains Burn “Richardson’s brilliant writing made me feel as though I were transported back in time…and actually there witnessing this poignant heartfelt story.”—Charles Belfoure, New York Times–bestselling author of The Fallen Architect “A reader always recognizes when the author has poured her soul into a body of work. [This] is a tender, beautifully written second novel.”—Ann Hite, author of the Black Mountain series