Trading Up

At the age of 27, Goldstone was appointed head foreign-exchange options trader at a commercial bank in New York, one of few women to enter this male bastion. It took her just three months to reach that pinnacle, a meteoric rise in a career that began, somewhat quixotically, with her entry-level position as a loan officer. As she details her rise and resignation, we are taken into the competitive, frenetic, encapsulated world of the Wall Street trader, a world where Goldstone's self-admitted brashness and ability to bluff enabled her to control millions of dollars daily. Dismayed by the chicanery of peers and diffusion of responsibility among male traders, and concerned about strains on her marriage, she withdrew from commercial banking convinced that she had ""never understood the rules of the game.'' Goldstone's expose is eye-opening and not likely to inspire confidence in those charged with manipulating capital. (March)