Goldman Sachs $100 Million Trading Days Reach Record in Quarter

Goldman Sachs $100 Million Trading Days Reach Record in Quarter
www.bloomberg.com...

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. made more than $100 million in trading revenue on a record 46 separate days during the second quarter, breaking the previous high of 34 set in the prior three months.

Trading losses occurred on two days during the months of April, May and June, compared with eight days in the first quarter, the New York-based bank said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Goldman Sachs, which was the biggest U.S. securities firm before converting to a bank last year, posted the biggest profit in its history during the second quarter as revenue from trading and equity underwriting reached all-time highs. The company, which has returned $10 billion to the U.S. Treasury plus $1.42 billion in dividends and to cancel warrants, also made its largest market bets during the period.

In fiscal year 2008, the firm had 90 days in which traders made more than $100 million, compared with 88 in 2007. In fiscal 2006, the figure was 49 days, up from 18 in 2005 and 14 in 2004. Goldman Sachs changed its fiscal year in 2009 to end in December instead of November.

Goldman Sachs’s trading results reflected the firm’s willingness to take on more risk during the period. Value-at- risk, an estimate of how much the firm could lose in any given day, rose to an average of $245 million in the second quarter from $240 million in the first quarter and $184 million in the second quarter of 2008. Most of the increase in the second quarter came from bets on equities, the company said.

Banks such as Goldman Sachs are benefiting from lower borrowing costs after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in October started guaranteeing bank debt issues that mature within three years. Goldman Sachs issued about $30 billion of debt guaranteed by the FDIC between November and March, according to company filings.

Now...who in their right mind still thinks these *Bankers* aren't ripping us/traders off big time with their HF Trading and other assorted *gouging*... $100M on 46 separate days ... that's $4.6B for members who don't have their calculators out/on...

:shk: ...Let 'er rip ATS'ers...

[edit on 8/5/2009 by Hx3_1963]

And there will be those who ADMIRE these middlemen parasites as 'clever'.

That's 4.6B in 'value' siphoned off the labor, product, or services which were performed or produced - just for 'being there'.

The invisible tax that keeps on sucking.

Its very nice to take risk and take profits at the expenses of tax payer in the nation.

This leaches doesn't have to worry about losing their wealth because the American for the people government have given them the power to take tax payer money when they are in the losing trend.

No wonder they can take risk.

Bernanke and the fed work for them because they are the power behind the fed sucking the nation dry.

And let no forget the treasury department is under their jurisdiction too.

Whole bunch of crocks needs to be burn.

Let us people get together and channel with the power of the mind to make them be exposed for what they are so the people in the nation finally see what our government has become under this crocks control.

Let channel people it works!!!!!!

reply to post by marg6043


Oh, it gets worse my friend: they weren't generating these profits by taking significant risks. They scaled back their risk. They seem to be gaming the system.

This looks a lot like the "smoking gun" that could give some validity to the market-manipulation theories. There's also talk that they take a quick glance at trades before anybody else gets the information. Basically, that's insider trading.

If THAT is what's going on, then if you or I committed fraud on this scale, we'd spend the next 60 years in a federal prison.


[edit on 5-8-2009 by theWCH]

It doesn't take much to move the market in a certain direction (well not the market but individual stocks) so you throw 10 million here, 10 million there, then you dump 100 million and everyone else is left holding the bag.

It's quite obvious Goldman is benefiting two groups.

Goldman, naturally, gets massive profits (thus so do shareholders, who happen to be all over our government) ..

The Government .. the stock market has progressively moved North, while the Economy moved South .. smoke and mirrors. . the ignorant American's believe the economy is recovering, or already recovered, when in actuality it's getting worse...

Win win for the Gov.

Agree with all of the above...

There is a significant grass roots effort to hold the criminals accountable...

Although I'm naturally skeptical and I think that these efforts may be in vain, financial blogs like ZeroHedge have brought considerable heat on the bankster's scams. So much heat, in fact, that "flash trading", "dark pool" and other computerized trading schemes may be eliminated, or at least attenuated by regulators.

Of course, these "regulators" have had their hand in creating the bezzle in the first place, so it's anyone's guess that this public attention will bring any real change..

It has been my contention all along that the only way any real change will occur is with the utter and complete destruction of the current financial system...Project Mayhem




[edit on 5-8-2009 by RolandBrichter]

Originally posted by RolandBrichter

...."flash trading", "dark pool" and other computerized trading schemes may be eliminated, or at least attenuated by regulators.

....

Oddly, the NYSE no longer requires these gamers to report their automatic trading volumes, etc.; gee ... I wonder how they 'earned' such trust?

.....Project Mayhem

We never talk about "Project Mayhem" ......

Originally posted by Hx3_1963
The company, which has returned $10 billion to the U.S. Treasury plus $1.42 billion in dividends and to cancel warrants, also made its largest market bets during the period.

GS had no difficulty to send the cash back to the Treasury, coz they didn't use it -- there was no need and they didn't ask for it. But the government had determined who was at risk (everyone) and sent the bailout $$$ in, coz it was profitable. (Warrant canceling fees.) They just wanted to show Wall St. who is in charge of everything: the mighty Treasury is. The forced bailouts was an obvious spanking affair.

Originally posted by stander

Originally posted by Hx3_1963
The company, which has returned $10 billion to the U.S. Treasury plus $1.42 billion in dividends and to cancel warrants, also made its largest market bets during the period.

GS had no difficulty to send the cash back to the Treasury, coz they didn't use it -- there was no need and they didn't ask for it. But the government had determined who was at risk (everyone) and sent the bailout $$$ in, coz it was profitable. (Warrant canceling fees.) They just wanted to show Wall St. who is in charge of everything: the mighty Treasury is. The forced bailouts was an obvious spanking affair.

Hmmmm...

And did Treasury also force them (Goldman) to become a bank holding company??

Nah.....the opportunity to use the Fed window was just "insurance", right?

Originally posted by RolandBrichter


And did Treasury also force them (Goldman) to become a bank holding company??

Nah.....the opportunity to use the Fed window was just "insurance", right?

If yes, then there would be a mighty long article on it at "Tickertape." Goldman is too smart to see over any derivative there is. Only financial cretens can get into deep trouble.

reply to post by RolandBrichter


GE turned its finance arm into a Bank Holding company, and became the largest beneficiary of Government funds.

GE financing gets $140 billion

No surpise, the parasites at Goldman Sachs are basically running the country these days. Former Goldman executives are in all branches of government. Even the governor of my corrupt state of NJ is the former CEO of Goldman. They take care of their own. The people suffer while they make obscene amouts of money..

From the link in the OP:

“It’s very counterintuitive to think that they’d be able to generate this much profit and this much revenue in the middle of an ongoing recession,” said William Cohan, a former banker at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Which leads to:

www.reuters.com...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has queried Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) about its compensation practices and credit derivative instruments, the firm said on Wednesday.

Goldman, in a regulatory filing, said it was cooperating with the requests -- tied to hot button issues that have captivated Wall Street and Washington.
Last month, Goldman reported robust net earnings of $3.4 billion for the second quarter, soon after repaying a $10 billion bailout received from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The firm set aside $6.65 billion in the quarter for compensation expenses, adding to a firestorm of criticism about pay practices on Wall Street. So far this year Goldman has set aside $11.3 billion for compensation.

As the firm faces unwanted attention for its bonus pool, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein told his staff to be cautious about making large purchases, the New York Post reported on Tuesday.

I'd be very surprised if anything actually came of the so-called "investigation". Like Rockpuck said, they are benefiting each other.

It's collusion, plain and simple. The investigation is just window dressing to try and distinguish the CorpGov brand image from that of Goldman Sachs.