Goldman Sachs posts lower earnings on SEC pact cost

Source: Reuters

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) posted lower second-quarter earnings, hurt by its settlement of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil fraud charges and the UK tax on bank executive bonuses.

The bank, which resolved a major headache last week by paying $550 million to settle the SEC case, fell short of analysts' expectations.

Excluding the cost of the SEC settlement, Goldman reported earnings per share of $1.72, below the average Wall Street forecast of $2.08, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Earnings applicable to common shareholders fell to $453 million, or 78 cents a share, from $2.7 billion, or $4.93 a share.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66J28S20100720

Hope they go broke and all the smarmy bastards have to go find real jobs -- the few they haven't helped outsource.

Source: Bloomberg

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lost money in the second quarter by betting on a drop in stock-market volatility just as a gauge of equity price swings surged to a one-year high.

“Primarily in response to our client needs, our equity derivatives business was short volatility entering the second quarter and posted poor results,” Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said on a conference call with news media today. The firm didn’t break out the size of the loss or the overall results from the equity derivatives group responsible for the business.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, known as the VIX, is the most widely used measure of volatility. The index, which started the second quarter at 17.47, rose as high as 45.79 on May 20 before ending the quarter at 34.54. The index, which measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, has averaged 20.38 over its two-decade history.

Goldman Sachs, which posted the highest equities trading revenue on Wall Street last year, said the division’s revenue slumped 62 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier to $1.21 billion. Still, the unit’s revenue beat equities divisions at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. in the quarter.


Read more: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asRcsjZJweFs

it seems a lot easier to understand why the torments of Hell should be endless. They really know how to make hay while the sun shines, don't they?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1296068/Trading-death-Rapacious-bankers-making-fortunes-forcing-price-food-leaving-millions-starve.html

Republicans are fond of reminding people that actions have consequences. A valuable insight, but one lost on themselves, evidently.

They will have to subsist on aboslutely inadequate $3000-a-bottle Bordeaux! Oh the humanity!

Isn't that how it works?

Source: Raw Story

Goldman Sachs profits fall 82 percent

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 -- 9:39 am


NEW YORK (AFP) – Investment giant Goldman Sachs on Tuesday said its profits fell 82 percent in the second quarter of the year against the same period last year.

Reporting net earnings of 613 million dollars, Chief Executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said the business environment had become tougher for the embattled firm.

"The market environment become more difficult during the second quarter, and as a result, client activity across our business declined," he said in a statement.

In first three months of the year, Goldman reported that profits had nearly doubled to 3.46 billion dollars.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0720/goldman-sachs-profits-fall-82-percent/

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smells fishy to me, kp

:sarcasm:

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

ah... my side hurts.

Or are you serious?

Why would shareholders continue to dole out that expense without a justified return on the investment? It defies all logic in the capitalistic system

Did they not get large bonuses for 2009, as well?

It's the general rule that benefits and bonuses are cut from the bottom up. Chainsaw Al Dunlop ring a bell? Back in the 80s and 90s, if you'll recall he downsized and destroyed a number of companies, then parachuted away with large bonuses and a golden parachute.

The same "logic" in the Capitalist system is deeply interlocked with power. Why did Rev. Sun Yung Moon run the Wash Times for all those years, most of them taking million-plus dollar losses?

Because sometimes, when it comes to power, the investment isn't visible to "conventional wisdom" and pays off much later down the road.

The Moonie-owned Times was a key coalescing point for Prudenization and all the rest of the RW Lie Machine to get jumpstarted and inncoulated into the Corporate M$M.