Thursday, October 15, 2009

Regarding Goldman Sachs Earnings "Strong":









  1. I heard his response went something like this:

  2. They may be paper profits, but that won't stop GS from paying huge bonuses to itself. What happened to all the talk of reining in greed at the top?

  3. Dave,
    Great take. I wish bank earnings were clear enough that even i could read them, but I only have a few hours a day to spare!

    Fleckenstein had agreat article up on the 12th, and the iTulip piece by Janszen "The Game - Part I: Queen of Hearts" is pretty good too.

    Of course we of the gold mindset are crazy anyway.

  4. gyc: black helicopters LOL

    the problem is that bank earnings are intentionally opaque. GS didn't even release a balance sheet yet. We won't see the b/s and the statement of cash flows until they file a 10Q (4-6 weeks) and by then everyone will have forgotten what fraud GS is.

    and even going thru the footnotes doesn't help much because there is a lot of "crap" like CDS positions that are embedded in their off-balance-sheet asset accounts.

    I would be both of my family jewels that GS, on a true mark to market basis, is technically insolvent. Same with JPM.

  5. While I am terribly disappointed with fiscal policy and actions of the Obama Administration we should remember that these policies have a clear history through the Bush/Cheney and Clinton Administrations.

  6. @Anonymous: completely agree. The Govt has become politically agnostic. It answers to Wall Street, not the people

  7. Dave, FICC has always been GS's biggest source of income. They seem to have their way with "interest rate products", which I suspect is just interest rate swaps. If that is the case, the revenue might be "legit" as GS probably has positioned itself as "pay float, receive fixed" in the run up to the $147 oil fiasco last summer. Everyone else bet central banks to raise interest rate but they probably did the opposite to profit from those "interest rate products" now. That also means most banks are "screwed" as they are likely to be other the other end of the "deal" as interest rate swaps are a zero sum game.