The Buy Side

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Galleon Group trader portrays an after-hours Wall Street culture where drugs and sex are rampant and billions in trading commissions flow to those who dangle the most enticements. 

A remarkable writing debut, filled with indelible moments, The Buy Side shows as no book ever has the rewards—and dizzying temptations—of making a living on the Street.
 
Growing up in the 1980’s Turney Duff was your average kid from Kennebunk, Maine, eager to expand his horizons. After trying – and failing – to land a job as a journalist, he secured a trainee position at Morgan Stanley and got his first feel for the pecking order that exists in the trading pits.  Those on the “buy side,” the traders who make large bets on whether a stock will rise or fall, are the “alphas” and those on the “sell side,” the brokers who handle their business, are eager to please.
 
How eager to please was brought home stunningly to Turney in 1999 when he arrived at the Galleon Group, a colossal hedge-fund management firm run by secretive founder Raj Rajaratnam.  Finally in a position to trade on his own, Turney was encouraged to socialize with the sell side and siphon from his new broker friends as much information as possible.  Soon he was not just vacuuming up valuable tips but also being lured into a variety of hedonistic pursuits.  Naïve enough to believe he could keep up the lifestyle without paying a price, he managed to keep an eye on his buy-and-sell charts and, meanwhile, pondered the strange goings on at Galleon, where tens of millions were being made each week in sometimes mysterious ways.
 
At his next positions, at Argus Partners and J.L. Berkowitz, Turney climbed to even higher heights – and, as it turned out, plummeted to even lower depths – as, by day, he solidified his reputation one of the Street’s most powerful healthcare traders, and by night, he blazed a path through the city’s nightclubs, showing off his social genius and voraciously inhaling any drug that would fill the void he felt inside.
 
A mesmerizingly immersive journey through Wall Street’s first millennial decade, and a poignant self portrait by a young man who surely would have destroyed himself were it not for his decision to walk away from a seven-figure annual income, The Buy Side is one of the best coming-of-age-on-the-Street books ever written.

“Bracing…calls to mind books like Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, and especially Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis…As spectacle [the book] easily trumps both…Mr. Duff proves a fine wordsmith: his prose is smooth, lean and rhythmic…An entertaining and cautionary tale, well worth your time.”
—Bryan Burrough, The New York Times 

“A heavyweight confessional about the perils of a life spent chasing the almighty dollar…even though the author’s brutal honesty about his increasingly chaotic personal life is commendable, it’s really more his vivid portrait of the everyday inner workings of life at a hedge fund that fascinates…A fast-paced memoir of the easy-money hypercapitalist dream-turned-nightmare.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Looking for a Hollywood-worthy account of Wall Street with lots of juicy details about the high life? Duff, a former financial trader who climbed the ranks at several major firms, provides a fascinating glimpse into the trader’s life as he narrates his journey from smalltown boyhood in Kennebunk, Maine, to hitting the jackpot in Manhattan, to succumbing to the poisons of success…[This] fast-paced tale will absorb readers…a wild ride.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This is why I keep my money safe and sound under the mattress. You could get high just reading this book. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Wall Street traders.”
—James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls

“Turney Duff is a natural storyteller, and his tale of how a naive kid from Maine traded in L.L. Bean for Armani and got sucked into the seamy side of Wall Street is almost impossible to put down. The book is by turns hilarious, harrowing, maddening, and illuminating. After this debut, the smart money will be on Duff.”
—Bethany McLean, New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here

“Turney Duff’s The Buy Side picks up where the Academy Award-winning film about systemic corruption on Wall Street, ‘Inside Job’, leaves off. Duff, who at one time was the promising rookie on the trading desk at troubled hedge fund Galleon, gives us a front-row seat to the Street’s dark side—but the tale also features a personal story that will have you cheering as Duff fights his way through a jungle of excess and figures out what really matters. To all those who want to rule the market not just during business hours but after hours, beware—you may not have Duff’s survival skills.”
—Lawrence G. McDonald, New York Times bestselling author of A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
 
“The Buy Side takes the reader on an extremely wild ride so eloquently and honestly that we never want it to end. Cocaine wants everything you love and everything that loves you. Turney Duff had everything and nothing while trading billions of dollars on a razor’s edge. His book takes you from Wall Street to Skid Row to the Thompson Hotel—and then, mercifully, back to sanity and finding a place in the world. Hang on, The Buy Side is gonna move you around, and there are no seatbelts to keep you from getting hit hard.”
—Brian O’Dea, author of High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler

“The Buy Side is ‘Wall Street’ meets ‘Breaking Bad’—except that this book is fact not fiction. Turney Duff yields to temptation at every turn, and the sheer volume of criminal behavior he saw, and even participated in, is astonishing…If you want to see Wall Street’s seamy underbelly firsthand, read this book.”
—Frank Partnoy, bestselling author of F.I.A.S.C.O and Infectious Greed
 
“If you took Gordon Gekko, Bud Fox, a copy of Bright Lights, Big City, and threw them in a blender with an ounce of cocaine, a bottle of Patron Tequila, and your favorite teddy bear you’d have yourself a Buy Side smoothie. Turney’s my kind of guy; a madman with heart. I couldn’t put the book down.”
—Colin Broderick, author of Orangutan
 
“Does Wall Street make people crazy or are crazy people simply attracted to Wall Street? The Buy Side doesn’t get us any closer to answering that question, but along the way we get a look inside perhaps the most ethically-challenged investment firm in recent memory, and a harrowing journey through drug addiction and recovery.  This is not a musical comedy; at the end, you’re just relieved that Duff is alive.”
—Jared Dillian, author of Street Freak: Money and Madness at Lehman Brothers
 
“Turney Duff’s The Buy Side is the perfect parable for Wall Street’s lost decade. Duff’s account of his rise and fall has it all, from a fast-paced coke-crazed trip through Manhattan nightlife that conjures Bright Lights, Big City, to an eyewitness account of insider trading and front running that reads like a federal indictment. Broke but not broken, Duff ends up better than others on Wall Street have—sober, chastened, and lucky to be alive after the self-destructive excesses of easy money and empty ambition.”
—Guy Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Octopus

Turney Duff has worked on Wall Street since 1994, including at Morgan Stanley, the Galleon Group, Argus Partners, and J.L. Berkowitz. A graduate of Ohio University E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, he has written and executive-produced two short movies and under his rap name “Cleveland D,” was partly responsible for the infamous Galleon song, “On the Good Ship Galleon.” He currently lives in Long Island City.Prologue

October 2003, 7:30 p.m.
New York City

I’m ready. The early darkness falls as we make our way across Tribeca, our shoes clicking on the cobblestones. At this hour the Bugaboo strollers have yielded to the coming Saturday-night revelry. My roommates and inner circle—six men and three women, all fashionably dressed as if they’re attending a red-carpet premiere—surround me. They mirror my every move, like a school of night fish. Our pace increases as we stride the few blocks to West Broadway and Canal. I wear a flannel shirt that has the sleeves ripped off, my favorite pair of worn jeans, and baby blue tinted sunglasses with studded fake jewels around the lenses.

Marcus, the owner of the Canal Room, meets us outside the club’s door. When he sees me, a smile stretches across his face. “They’re with me,” I say, flicking a thumb at my trailing companions. The doorman unhooks the red velvet rope and we follow Marcus into the club. It’s nearly empty, but not for long. Marcus is smiling for good reason. He calls me the Pied Piper—King of the Night. And soon my following, the royalty of young Wall Street, will fill his club.

By eight p.m. the line outside the Canal Room stretches to more than a hundred people. By eight thirty it’s almost doubled. When the doors finally open it’s as though someone has pulled a stopper in a marble sink filled with champagne. Dressed in Armani and Prada, the excited throng pours inside. I stand by the door, playing the role of greeter, accumulating lipstick impressions on my cheeks and, occasionally, a small gift—a perk of the buy side. One friend, Brian, gives me ten ecstasy pills. I have no intention of taking them—well, maybe just one or two. I shove them into my pocket to use as party favors later. I’ll walk up to anyone who I know is down with it and, with a devilish grin, ask, “Breath mint?” When they open their mouth I’ll pop one in. Tonight, there are no limits.

I’ve arranged everything: the space, the bands, and the guest list. The invites were sent out by my alter ego, Cleveland D. The club has just been remodeled with a brand-new sound system, the best in New York City, and now, appropriately, it’s blaring Missy Elliott’s “Work It.” If any of the guests thought this night was just another average Wall Street bash featuring some overpriced DJ or a retro band like the Allman Brothers or Foreigner, that notion is put to rest when Lisa Jackson, a cross-dressing glam singer, takes the stage. When she breaks into “Purple Rain” and then “Ring My Bell,” it’s as though she’s just grabbed a handful of every guy’s well-tailored crotch. And she’s only the foreplay.

By nine thirty the place is throbbing. Liquor flows. People dance or sway to the music, drinks held high. I make my way to the bar, but it takes me five minutes to move five feet. I can’t talk to anyone for more than a few seconds before feeling a tug at my back or a hand on my shoulder. I can see people across the room flashing a nod or toasting me with their drink. It seems all of Wall Street is here, at least all of Wall Street that matters. Every brokerage firm is represented: other buy side traders, sell siders, bankers, fixed income traders, and the rest.

On the stage the group Naughty by Nature begins their hip-hop version of the Jackson 5 hit “ABC.” It takes just a few notes for the entire crowd to erupt, realizing they’re hearing the song “OPP.” Multiple rotating strobe lights frantically stripe the fist-pumping revelers. Treach, Naughty by Nature’s lead rapper, has the microphone in his hand and is pacing back and forth onstage. The energy surges, plateaus, then builds some more. The area in front of the stage is a pulsating mob, and as the space between the swaying bodies draws closer and closer, escape becomes impossible for anyone in front. The musical loop continues, spurring the crowd to beg for more, and then Treach finally puts the microphone to his mouth. “You down with Cleveland D?” he shouts as he points the microphone toward the crowd. “Yeah, you know me,” they shout back.

I stand next to the stage, the thump of the bass hammering my eardrums as I shout the lyrics: “Army with harmony . . . Dave drop a load on ’em . . .” I sing along with Treach as if we’re one, as if the words are as much mine as his. In front of me, four hundred guests—sexy, attractive, drunk, intelligent, powerful, and all with fat wallets—jump and sing with as much gangsta as they can muster. They’re a tribe doing a triumphant war dance. I know this room will earn hundreds of millions of dollars combined in annual income this coming year— what the Street likes to call “fuck-you money.” And on this night, I have all these princes and princesses of finance in my front pocket.

Then the flush of ecstatic excitement I’m feeling subsides and in its place comes a curious and discomforting thought. In a distended moment that suddenly opens like a chasm, it strikes me: I’ve just turned thirty-four; this party is meant to celebrate that. But it’s meant to celebrate something more. Somehow, against the odds, I’ve become a hedge fund trader—a job description that is the envy of Wall Street. I’m at the very pinnacle of my career, a career powered not by an Ivy League MBA or some computer-like dexterity (a common skill set among the youthful and moneyed dancing in front of me) but by an odd Wall Street truth: what happens after the closing bell is as important as anything that happens during the day. It’s during those hours after office lights have been turned out that I shine.

But as I consider what I’ve accomplished, something gnaws at my satisfaction—bores a deep hole in my happiness. I can’t put my finger on it . . . it’s just, as I stand there, right beside the stage, looking out at this sea of privilege, I’m empty. And, for the first time in a long while, I don’t know what can fill me.US

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