Goldman Sachs

[SharperDingaan]

Been there 12 years. Slime by association.

 

Scalping muppets is what you do - so why not scalp THE muppet - GS.

Make a name, side with the angels, get the industry 'trust busted', & come back as a CFO/Senior Partner in a 'new' I-Bank, under 'new' rules. Short GS down to peanuts, & let your bank balance do the talking. GS partners loathe you because you took away the golden goose, but so what - f** 'em - they're just more muppets. Begging you for a 'partnerhip' in your new firm if you're successfull.

 

GS only exists because the partners have no way of reliably making more $ elsewhere. Their ability to grow the business further, & their profit maximization, has gone about as far as it can go. The big $ are now from imploding it & shorting all the way down ..... & with maybe a little assistance from global regulators, & the I-Bank lobby cutting off a limb to save the body.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

[Vish_ram]

The solution to this is very simple;

 

split GS to multiple independent companies

GS proprietary trading

GS Asset management

GS IB

 

Then ban any Goldmanite from taking a govt position for next 20 years; they have systematically infiltrated every govt organization that governs and regulates the markets. When these happen, I'll be riding the unicorn with tooth fairy on my lap

[txlaw]

Incidentally, I find it incredibly funny that whenever I watch a video on Bloomberg about GS, including interviews where people (e.g., Hank Greenberg) are slamming GS, a video ad for Goldman comes up before the actual video.

[Guest Hester]

"Klarman had a bad visceral reaction to the Goldman hearings. Goldman’s hedging should have been celebrated as they were the Wall Street firm least likely to blow up thanks to the hedging. The world is a wild and woolly place. Brokers may have more conflicts of interest, but he knows Wall Street will always try to “rip out our eyeballs” on a trade. He said they go to Wall Street with their eyes wide open. He doesn’t know how to police Wall Street better. As market-makers, Wall Street doesn’t owe them any fiduciary duty."

 

-Notes to a Seth Klarman interview.

[JSArbitrage]

This twitter account has been around for quite some time, well before the recent headlines.  Interesting perspective into the culture.

 

Eskimos have 100 words for snow.  Goldman seems to have their own vocabulary as well.

 

http://twitter.com/#!/gselevator

 

This is most likely fake, unless you get paid to stand around the elevators all day doing witty one-liners at Goldman.  At my firm, the elevator is the least likely place you'd say anything controversial because you never know if the person in there with you is a client, reporter, from another group, a higher-up without a sense of humor, etc. 

[Myth465]

Its pretty funny though.

[dcollon]

From Tom Brown at Bankstocks.com

 

http://www.bankstocks.com/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=6460&ArticleTypeID=2

 

[vinod1]

It looks like the letter is nothing more than a way to secure a book deal.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/former-goldman-exec-smith-lands-181530727.html;_ylt=AnpX44Xv_WNguDX5_Lu.sHOiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTNycmJuNmQzBG1pdANGUCBUb3AgU3RvcnkgTGVmdARwa2cDZjNjNjBkNDQtZTYxZS0zMDY3LTgxM2UtMzc5YTg5M2U2OTcyBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzZiYjllOTQwLTdhOTQtMTFlMS1iZWFlLTIxM2NlYTBiNjI0ZA--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

 

Vinod

 

[PlanMaestro]

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/04_-_April/ACA_Financial_gets_go-ahead_for_Abacus_fraud_case_v__Goldman/

Like U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, who last month permitted the hedge fund Dodona to proceed with fraud claims for its investment in Goldman's Hudson CDOs, Justice Barbara Kapnick was swayed by allegations that the bank deliberately set out to mislead ACA, which insured the Abacus CDO. Kapnick's 41-page opinion recounts that ACA specifically asked Goldman at least twice about Paulson's position on the CDO. Goldman repeatedly informed the insurer, according to Kapnick, that Paulson was the equity investor with a long position that aligned his interests with ACA's. Of course, that wasn't true: Through credit default swaps, Paulson was banking on the inevitable failure of the CDO.

 

That allegedly active deception, according to Kapnick, overcomes Goldman's argument that if ACA really wanted to know Paulson's position it could simply have asked him. "By undertaking to characterize Paulson's economic interest in the transaction, Goldman Sachs assumed a duty to disclose Paulson's true economic interest in Abacus, especially once it was put on notice that ACA was acting on the erroneous belief, based on Goldman Sachs's affirmative misrepresentations, that Paulson had pre-committed to take a long position," the judge wrote.

 

In other words, Kapnick held, even though ACA is a sophisticated player, Goldman is on the hook for concealing information ACA couldn't have obtained by other means.

 

[muscleman]

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/04_-_April/ACA_Financial_gets_go-ahead_for_Abacus_fraud_case_v__Goldman/

Like U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, who last month permitted the hedge fund Dodona to proceed with fraud claims for its investment in Goldman's Hudson CDOs, Justice Barbara Kapnick was swayed by allegations that the bank deliberately set out to mislead ACA, which insured the Abacus CDO. Kapnick's 41-page opinion recounts that ACA specifically asked Goldman at least twice about Paulson's position on the CDO. Goldman repeatedly informed the insurer, according to Kapnick, that Paulson was the equity investor with a long position that aligned his interests with ACA's. Of course, that wasn't true: Through credit default swaps, Paulson was banking on the inevitable failure of the CDO.

 

That allegedly active deception, according to Kapnick, overcomes Goldman's argument that if ACA really wanted to know Paulson's position it could simply have asked him. "By undertaking to characterize Paulson's economic interest in the transaction, Goldman Sachs assumed a duty to disclose Paulson's true economic interest in Abacus, especially once it was put on notice that ACA was acting on the erroneous belief, based on Goldman Sachs's affirmative misrepresentations, that Paulson had pre-committed to take a long position," the judge wrote.

 

In other words, Kapnick held, even though ACA is a sophisticated player, Goldman is on the hook for concealing information ACA couldn't have obtained by other means.

 

 

Thank you Plan. What is the expected loss from GS if they lose this case?

 

Do you think at $103, GS is an undervalued stock? Its EPS has been pretty erratic in the past. Sometimes $20 a year and sometimes less than $10. It is difficult to understand its business. But I am pretty sure they are the most talented folks in their industry.

 

[PlanMaestro]

 

Barron's: Built To Win

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904414004578018594042856164.html?mod=TWM_pastedition_1

 

 

The bear case on Goldman, and by extension all firms operating by the traditional rules of Wall Street economics, is that regulation, lower financial leverage, reputational damage and a long-lasting ebb in capital-market volume will prevent the firm from earning an acceptable rate of return on shareholders' capital, even as it continues to overpay teams of trading cowboys to take undue risks. Each point can be countered, at least enough to suggest that Goldman's share price currently discounts them.

 

TO BE SURE, LOWER LEVERAGE will dampen absolute levels of profitability: The bank is expected to net $6.5 billion, or $12.55 a share, in 2013, below its precrisis peak of $11.4 billion. But not all the profits of the precrisis period owed to leverage.

 

What's more, in this year's first quarter, in a modestly better environment for client risk-taking and deal-making, Goldman notched a 12% return on equity, respectable enough to keep book value and the stock price rising nicely if it becomes the new norm. Plus, Goldman's valuation reflects barely, if at all, the value of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, one of the world's top 10 investment firms, whose performance recently has revived, and which provides steadier revenue and earnings than the market-sensitive businesses.

 

As for regulation, no one knows what its precise impact will be. But the Volcker Rule prohibiting proprietary trading has mostly been implemented at the firm level. And, contrary to the popular view, pure "prop" trading was never a major source of profit at Goldman and other firms. Goldman has been resolute in assuming it still will be able to post its own capital in the service of client needs for liquidity, hedging, and market positioning, which in truth has been the basis for its dominant fixed-income, currencies, and commodities business for decades.

 

Trading and deal volumes have been undeniably soft. Global wholesale market-related revenue across the industry, encompassing investment banking, equities, credit trading, foreign exchange, commodities, and interest-rate trading, was down 21% last year from 2006 levels, according to consultants Oliver Wyman.

 

Discussion at many a post-close Wall Street happy hour revolves around how much of this reduced trading and deal flow is cyclical, and how much is a long-lived response to the financial crisis and an impaired financial industry. Likely, it's a bit of both. But the long-term backdrop continues to suggest that global capital flows will quicken again.

 

McKinsey & Co. says that global financial assets totaled $219 trillion last year, with 22% overseen by professional asset managers. Capital will continue to move around in search of good returns. And emerging-market economies will produce plenty of capital-raising and conglomerate-building activity, and the long-tenured Western banks will remain in the middle of the action.

 

All this bodes well for Goldman, among the first firms to bet on emerging-markets growth. With professionals on the ground in developing nations and financial capitals, it could see an outsized portion of the global underwriting and investing business, especially with the Swiss universal banks retrenching and Britain shortening the leash on its largest

 

[meiroy]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-initiated-buy-goldman-102905448.html

 

"Goldman Sachs initiated with a Buy at Goldman

 

Target $175"

 

If anyone needed another reason to buy GS here it is. I'm just saying...

 

[Ballinvarosig Investors]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-15/goldman-s-blankfein-said-to-demand-deepest-cost-cuts-in-years

 

Interesting article. When Goldman are struggling, you know the investment banking business is in bad shape. The fact that they are trying to save money by cutting their printing bill made me laugh, that does not sound like Goldman at all!

[doughishere]

Anyone have the report on Goldman Sachs?.......I feel like drifting out of my coc