The Fall Summary and Analysis

"Through the idle of August, Long-Term Capital had been having a bad year, but only a bad year such as any fund, or any capitalistic enterprise, must sooner or later suffer. Its reputation, like its capital, remained intact. Its overall record sparkled, and its name, among the members of the financial cognoscenti who truly knew the firm, often gave rise to the very term "genius". Long-Term was unknown to the general public, but that is how Meriwether and his boys wanted it, and that, of course, is how they expected the fund to remain. They could hardly have had a glimmer of the large, even historic, event in which they were to play a leading role, nor of how radically their fortunes could change. Much less could they have imagined the stunning swiftness with which such events would unfold...