Goldman Sachs (GS) 01 (Jun 08 - Apr 10)

[millionairemind]

There is a website that is "anti-GS" and have been sued by GS. It poses interesting views and conspiracy theories. For those who are interested.

http://www.goldmansachs666.com/

[millionairemind]

This is getting interesting...

Gold Anti Trust Action Committee Urges SEC, CFTC To Probe Goldman Trading Program
Submitted by Tyler Durden on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 17:39
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gold-a ... ng-program

And so it develops. From the GATA press release:


Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

GATA today urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer trading program that, according to a federal prosecutor, the bank acknowledges can be used to manipulate markets.

GATA's complaint referred to the Bloomberg News story dispatched to you yesterday --

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... 6d.tyNe1KQ)

-- reporting the arraignment in U.S. District Court in New York of a former Goldman Sachs employee accused of stealing the program. The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti, was quoted as telling the court: "The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways."

In letters to the SEC and CFTC, GATA wrote: "The assistant U.S. attorney's comment can be construed to suggest Goldman Sachs considers its own manipulation of markets to be fair, while such manipulation by others would be unfair. The court proceeding described in the Bloomberg News story would seem to impugn all markets in which Goldman Sachs trades."

GATA asked each commission "to investigate Goldman Sachs' trading program urgently and report its findings publicly."

The text of GATA's letters is appended.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

GOLD ANTI-TRUST ACTION COMMITTEE INC. 7 Villa Louisa Road, Manchester, Connecticut 06043-7541

July 7, 2009

Gary Gensler, Chairman U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission 3 Lafayette Centre 1155 21st St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20581

Mary L. Schapiro, Chairman U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F St. N.E. Washington, D.C. 20549

Dear Chairman Gensler / Dear Chairman Schapiro:

I'm enclosing a copy of a report distributed July 6 by Bloomberg News Service about the U.S. government's prosecution of a former employee of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. involving the purported theft of a Goldman Sachs computer trading program. The report quotes Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Faccipointi as saying in U.S. District Court in New York City: "The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways."

If the report quotes the assistant U.S. attorney correctly, and if he was characterizing Goldman Sachs' position correctly, then Goldman Sachs claims to have possession of a computer trading program that can manipulate markets. The assistant U.S. attorney's comment can be construed to suggest Goldman Sachs considers its own manipulation of markets to be fair, while such manipulation by others would be unfair.

The court proceeding described in the Bloomberg News story would seem to impugn all markets in which Goldman Sachs trades. On behalf of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc., I ask your commission to investigate Goldman Sachs' trading program urgently and report its findings publicly.

Thanks for your consideration.

With good wishes.

CHRIS POWELL Secretary/Treasurer

[-dol-]

Very interesting, indeed.

It's about time!

Oil at US$150... US$200...

Some investment banks (now commercial banks) seem time and again to be "more equal" than others.

[kennynah]

they are so cash rich....not many men in position of power can withstand the lure of fat briberies...

[winston]

Just heard that in China, somebody set up a fake GS website

[-dol-]

Neither with the current US regime.

You have to be a long-term believer of "you reap what you sow" to see justice being meted out eventually.

[millionairemind]

July 14, 2009
Goldman sold $1b stocks

LONDON - EXECUTIVES at US banking giant Goldman Sachs sold almost US$700 million (S$1.02 billion) worth of stocks after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Most of the sales, worth 431 million pounds or 500 million euros (S$1.02 billion), occurred when the firm enjoyed the support of US$10 billion in US government capital injections, the London-based newspaper said.

The FT based its report on compilings the newspaper had made of filings by banking executives with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The surge in selling among Goldman partners, at a time when the US Treasury had thrown Wall Street a lifeline through its asset relief programme, is likely to spark criticism from lawmakers in Washington, the FT said.

The bank, having survived the global economic crisis that included the collapse of Lehman Brothers, is expected to report strong 2009 second quarter earnings later on Tuesday thanks to rebounding trading profits.

The turnaround comes after Goldman Sachs said in April it lost US$1.02 billion in December 2008, a day after it reported profit of US$1.8 billion for the first quarter.

The bank declined to comment on the FT report other than to say that its partners receive a big share of their annual bonuses in stock, and that for many, stock sales represent an effort to diversify their holdings. The bank has said it was repaying the Treasury's US$10 billion.

'We are grateful for the government's extraordinary efforts and are pleased to be able to return to the US Treasury the funds that were invested in Goldman Sachs,' said Mr Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive, last month.

[winston]

Goldman profit soars on strong trading gains By Steve Eder

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) reported a 33 percent rise in quarterly earnings on Tuesday as a strong gain in trading was offset by a one-time charge to repay government loans.

Wall Street's largest surviving investment bank reported net income for common shareholders of $2.7 billion, or $4.93 a share, compared with $2.05 billion, or $4.58 a share, in the closest year-earlier quarter.

Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates forecast, on average, $3.49 a share, while those surveyed by First Call predicted earnings per share of $3.54. It was not immediately clear if the estimates were comparable to the reported figure. The results came in above analysts' consensus forecast.

Goldman shares fell less than 1 percent in electronic premarket trading.

Goldman, the first major U.S. bank to report second-quarter earnings, saw its performance bolstered by improving markets and strong trading results, as well as an upswing in advisory fees.

Gains were tempered by a one-time $426 million charge related to the repayment of $10 billion in loans from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP.

[millionairemind]

Maybe GS's got the whole congress on the speed dial..

Goldman Sachs profits hailed by lawmakers
Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:25pm EDT
By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans alike lauded Goldman Sachs on Tuesday after the company, which received taxpayer assistance last year, said its quarterly profit rose and that it was setting aside billions for employees.

"Is there a law in the United States that you can't make profits?" Representative Paul Kanjorski, a senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, asked reporters.

Kanjorski said he hoped Goldman's profits were a sign of economic recovery and a possible bellwether for other sectors. "I have great hope General Motors has great profits next year," he said.

Last month, Goldman repaid the $10 billion that it received from the U.S. Treasury Department in October. In so doing, Goldman freed itself from government-imposed restrictions on executive pay.

The bank said its second quarter earnings rose 33 percent to $2.7 billion, and that it had put aside $6.65 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits in the quarter, up by nearly half from a year ago.

"I want all the people we gave money to make profits. Pay the money back with interest and have a net zero cost to our program," said House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, was restrained.

"I'm not in this statement criticizing Goldman Sachs because I don't know how they made their money," Reid told reporters. "But I'm glad, as I indicated, someone made some money."

Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said, "I'm not surprised. Goldman Sachs has a history of being well run and sometimes ahead of the others."

There was no jubilation from the White House, however.

"I don't know if the president has seen any of the information and I'm hesitant, as I think the Treasury is, to comment on individual earnings reports," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One.

[Cherry]

Published on Friday, July 17, 2009 by The New York Times

The Joy of Sachs
by Paul Krugman

The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?

First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.

Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.

Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.

Let’s start by talking about how Goldman makes money.

Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared in importance compared with the actual production of useful stuff. The sector officially labeled “securities, commodity contracts and investments” has grown especially fast, from only 0.3 percent of G.D.P. in the late 1970s to 1.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2007.

Such growth would be fine if financialization really delivered on its promises — if financial firms made money by directing capital to its most productive uses, by developing innovative ways to spread and reduce risk. But can anyone, at this point, make those claims with a straight face?

Financial firms, we now know, directed vast quantities of capital into the construction of unsellable houses and empty shopping malls. They increased risk rather than reducing it, and concentrated risk rather than spreading it. In effect, the industry was selling dangerous patent medicine to gullible consumers.

Goldman’s role in the financialization of America was similar to that of other players, except for one thing: Goldman didn’t believe its own hype. Other banks invested heavily in the same toxic waste they were selling to the public at large. Goldman, famously, made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages — then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed. All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers.

And Wall Streeters have every incentive to keep playing that kind of game.
The huge bonuses Goldman will soon hand out show that financial-industry highfliers are still operating under a system of heads they win, tails other people lose. If you’re a banker, and you generate big short-term profits, you get lavishly rewarded — and you don’t have to give the money back if and when those profits turn out to have been a mirage. You have every reason, then, to steer investors into taking risks they don’t understand.

And the events of the past year have skewed those incentives even more, by putting taxpayers as well as investors on the hook if things go wrong.

I won’t try to parse the competing claims about how much direct benefit Goldman received from recent financial bailouts, especially the government’s assumption of A.I.G.’s liabilities. What’s clear is that Wall Street in general, Goldman very much included, benefited hugely from the government’s provision of a financial backstop — an assurance that it will rescue major financial players whenever things go wrong.
You can argue that such rescues are necessary if we’re to avoid a replay of the Great Depression. In fact, I agree. But the result is that the financial system’s liabilities are now backed by an implicit government guarantee.

Now the last time there was a comparable expansion of the financial safety net, the creation of federal deposit insurance in the 1930s, it was accompanied by much tighter regulation, to ensure that banks didn’t abuse their privileges. This time, new regulations are still in the drawing-board stage — and the finance lobby is already fighting against even the most basic protections for consumers.

If these lobbying efforts succeed, we’ll have set the stage for an even bigger financial disaster a few years down the road. The next crisis could look something like the savings-and-loan mess of the 1980s, in which deregulated banks gambled with, or in some cases stole, taxpayers’ money — except that it would involve the financial industry as a whole.

The bottom line is that Goldman’s blowout quarter is good news for Goldman and the people who work there. It’s good news for financial superstars in general, whose paychecks are rapidly climbing back to precrisis levels. But it’s bad news for almost everyone else.

© 2009 The New York Times

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the author of numerous books, including The Conscience of A Liberal, and his most recent, The Return of Depression Economics.