Goldman Sachs could seize to exist after 11.40

now ur gettin crazy

no prop trading no Goldman, watch the stock at 11.40. If Obama does what people are saying that stock is going to get cut in half

you mean cease, I guess....

Good, seize it I say.

haha, just watch that stock at 11.40

the end of goldman? come on, if so, where would FED people come from? for who would DC work for? this prophesy is harder to believe than the Mayans saying that the end will come in 2012.

rangersfan where have you been? I miss making fun of you!

yeah, its just too easy!

oh my god, I just heard what he said.... no hedge funds...

HUGE!

this is huge!

oh my lord, I honestly did not expect this. I knew change was coming, but I thought it would be small crap.

But "goldman, you can't run a hedge fund". Holy mother.

they are a hedge fund and whitehall is done!

Watch how quickly Goldman and Morgan change back to investment banks from Bank holding companies. This announcement is laughable. The government is like a dog chasing its tail. These institutions can morph into different structures rather quickly.

without prop trading Goldman stock will get cut in half

This is great regulation and wil protect the American people...until the Republicans repeal it and then the country will get scammed by banks again and then the Republicans will blame their repeal on the democrats......

Does Goldman have substantial commercial banking deposits? They will just convert back to a securities firm from a Bank Holding Company. JPMorgan, Citi, BofA, etc. will be severely affected.

LIC they might not be able to

seize or cease? talent leaks out of nyc -- money and tax revenue with it :(!

cease, it was a late night.

NObama

Yeah "talent will leak out of NY" all those bankers who are used living a top high rises in Manhattan and eating the finest food, canoodling with models, and getting th best blow will surely move out of New York. They will move to Philadelphia, Columbus and Chicago... where they will be able to continue their lifestyles with less taxes and government regulations....

Don't forget about the trickle down effect. Private schools, drivers, doormen, retailers, nannies, brokers, etc. A lot of people in NYC are affected by lower profits on wall street.

not gonna be able to spin off all these desks on thier own czu they wont have funding. there goes another 1000 jobs in the city.

Blankfein should have kept is stupid mouth shut! They are done doing "gods work"

From the the Times.....Basically what LICComment wrote.

Only a handful of large banks would be the targets of the proposal, among them Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street trading house, became a commercial bank during this latest crisis, and it would presumably have to give up that status.

Obama will be a one term president!!
Correct Walterh7, and, these are worldwide corporations...they can do business elsewhere.

Their CFO has stated that prop revenues represent 10% of total rev. Hardly earth shattering, arguably this will effect JP Morgan more, plus it has to pass congress...they can't even get a consumer protection agency through.

HRH call anybody you know at GS and ask them how the firm makes most of there money, its the prop trading desk. This is HUGE

Flmao. Does anyone remember when gs was a partnership? No sane professional public money manager could handle the risk of owning in effect a hedge fund. I guess this is what happens when the Feds 0 plan with 0 risk goes on for 20 yrs. The mkt completely misprices risk for 'the fed will bail us out risk.'.

Let gs go back to ibanking/prop trading, just make sure they mkt to mkt and regulators ensure the derivatives gs sells doesn't end up on the FDIC side.

Any does this work in the type of global markets we have now? Why wouldn't JPMorgan just move its proprietary desks to London? The jobs and capital then flow out of the U.S. Is this another stupid approach to Wall Street by Obama?

Licc. It's called a consolidated balance sheet. The more relevant question is why not move whole shop o Mumbai? One word 'fraud'. Us is stil the gold standard in regs and disclosure. Which is sorta sad but true.

none of these firm could exist outside of the US. London sucks!

i think this absolutely crushes manhattan RE

and the hamptons!

juiceman??

He keeps talking about being too big to fail. But Bear and Lehman were midsize firms and were not banks, and AIG FP was not a bank. (Although Citi is a different story.) The problem was with them being too interconnected to fail.

This is more overreach by Obama. He should focus on restricting leverage banks can take, putting limits and transparency on derivatives, the credit rating agencies, etc.

samadams, your indepth analysis and commentary is remarkably illuminating. glad to see you and your buttbuddy somewherelse are riding shotgun again. do you really think gs will seize to exist after this announcement - another classic.

GS is gonna go private again as soon as they can. bottom line is that this makes it official that there will be no bonus savior for manhattan RE. good night bulls.

ranger if you are to dumb to understand the topic dont get involved. You are like the guy at the table who cant figure out who the sucker is

do you think this blankfein's fault for being such a mensch on capitol hill

HA! Love it. This coming from the least-informed poster in memory. Go back to your barely middle management position of no consequence and stop ringing alarm bells on things that you clearly know nothing about....

blankfein clearly stuck his foot in it with that asenine statement but at least who knew to cut his losses since he hightailed out of town without taking any questions at his last testimony.

Given that the Supremes just instructed corporate America to pour unlimited funds into all US political campaigns, it's hard to imagine any regulation will pass, with support from either party, that will box GS in at all. Same for administrative guidelines, executive orders, etc.

how dumb are you ranger?

anything restricting wall street will pass through congress faster than thier own pay raise votes

Alanhart speaks sadly and truly. Good god, what the blazes is going on?
Hellishness all around. Although of course there is the silver lining of humor .... I'm worried about the bruises all over w67 who's on his butt laughing all the time ....

"anything restricting wall street will pass through congress faster than thier own pay raise votes"

House, yes, because even moderate Dems or ones from swing districts are too scared of Nancy Pelosi to vote no. Senate, no so sure.

can someone tell me wht the hell this thread is about? Are you peopel high on drugs or something?

We are high on the shifting tides of the times .........

WSJ:
A plunge in financial stocks weighed heavily on the broader market as President Barack Obama proposed the most extensive curbs on banks' risk-taking since the outbreak of the recent financial crisis.

J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America were two of the worst performers. J.P. Morgan fell 4.2% and Bank of America was down 3.9%. Goldman Sachs Group fell 3.5%, despite reporting stronger-than-expected earnings before the bell. Citigroup slid 4.1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently off 173 points, or 1.6%, at 10430.01. If that decline persists through the closing bell, it would represent the average's second straight triple-digit point decline, the first such slide since late October.

In comments just before midday, Mr. Obama spelled out a plan that would effectively restore some provisions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated firms' commercial and investment activities until it was repealed in 1999.

Mr. Obama endorsed what he called the "Volcker Rule," after measures pushed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which would place restrictions on the proprietary trading done by commercial banks, essentially limiting the way banks bet with their own capital.

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs
The proposals would likely face a tough fight to get through Congress, which has already been subject to heavy anti-regulation lobbying by major firms in recent months. After the president's remarks, traders and analysts also debated how effective the plan might be if implemented.

"This probably should've been done a year or two ago," said Bill King, a strategist at M. Ramsey King Securities in Burr Ridge, Ill. But he added: "You can't entirely legislate the solutions to this rather than let the markets work, either. As long as the Fed is keeping interest rates low, the Street is going to take on a lot of risk."

But even amid the market slide, some traders were nonchalant about the harm that Mr. Obama's proposals might inflict to major banks.

"There were a lot of firms on the Street before Glass-Steagall was repealed that were still able to function quite profitably," said John O'Donoghue, head of equities at Cowen & Co. He said he viewed Mr. Obama's speech as an attempt to gain back popular opinion after Democrats lost one U.S. Senate seat in Tuesday's Massachusetts election.

The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.6%. The S&P 500 was off 1.4%, hurt by a 1.5% decline in its financial sector. All the index's other categories traded lower as well, including a 3.4% slide in basic materials as fears of global monetary tightening continued to simmer.

Commodities were also under pressure, especially oil, which neared a one-month low after government data showed a plunge in refinery activity due to weak fuel demand. Crude futures were recently off $1.77 to $75.97 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"Refineries just don't want to produce product as demand is lackluster and the money is not there," said Mike Zarembski, senior commodities analyst with OptionsXpress in Chicago.

Investors are also skittish over movement in the dollar, which on Wednesday broke through a 200-day moving average against a basket of other currencies. Data showing growth in China's economy and subsequent reports of a tightening lending environment have made the market more cautious recently.

In other markets, gold futures also slipped and Treasurys climbed. The 10-year note was up 9/32 to yield 3.619%.

—Donna Kardos Yesalavich contributed to this article.
Write to Peter A. McKay at peter.mckay@wsj.com and Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@dowjones.com

They will give up their bank charter, DONE..business as usual. No worries.

El_Presidente: "wht the hell this thread is about?"

"Let's Name The New Regulation The "Hey Goldman! You're Not Going To Be So Profitable Any More Act Of 2010" "

http://www.businessinsider.com/lets-name-the-new-regulation-the-hey-goldman-youre-not-going-to-be-so-profitable-any-more-act-of-2010-2010-1

Also: "Volcker Rule" -- after this tall guy behind me. Banks will no longer be allowed to own, invest, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading operations for their own profit, unrelated to serving their customers." - there goes the bulk of GS business. Therefore, GS as we know it, could CEASE to exist, IF this passes through Congress.

Thnk you poorishlady, but I gotz a lot of cushion. Lookz ppl there was an op-Ed about how crazy th financial mkt became in America over the last 20 yrs. Me thinkz the capts of 'industry' actually meant 'real' industry. When 4/10 members at the yacht club are 'finance bonus' guys and realtors..... There is something wrong in america. Imagine if you will a country whereby asset bubbles no longer drives 30-40% of employment in us. Where savers get paid 7% risk free real rates so we aren't chasing every f'n snake oil salespitch and we all our fair share. Flmao. Ouch landed on my tail bone.

dow down 210 pts, 3:06 pm.
Gives us something to watch I guess, as opposed to really doing something.

This thread is about Blankfein fu%&*^ with the wrong %^&(%(

"They will give up their bank charter, DONE..business as usual. No worries"

of course...so why the sell off in the stocks? obviuosly you know something the market doesnt.

"no prop trading no Goldman, watch the stock at 11.40. If Obama does what people are saying that stock is going to get cut in half"

Okay, it's 3:15 and GS is down 4%. Yet another outlandish prediction that was completely wrong. Of cours, according to some people since it went down at all you were right, nevermind that you were 92% off of your prediction.

the Bond market priced in a 37 % chance that GS would not exist in the next 5 years waverly. You holding GS stock smarty pants?

So maybe Goldman will divorce Sachs in the next 5 years.

Nope...just sitting avoiding wacky predictions that won't happen.

#1 - The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

#2 - The second rule of Fight Club is, you DO NOT talk about Fight Club.

#3 - If someone says stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.

#4 - Two guys to a fight.

#5 - One fight at a time.

#6 - No shirts, no shoes.

#7 - Fights will go on as long as they have to.

#8 - If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

And of course, #9 - Don't ever, under any circumstances, bet against Goldman Sachs.

but samadams has 5 bucks riding in his office pool that goldman sachs will be no more in a year. now thats putting real risk in play.

if I was allowed to short GS I would!

Why should a hedge fund be at a competitive disadvantage due to no other reason than Goldman got themselves declared a bank, can borrow through the Fed and have FDIC insured deposits. Paul Volcker makes sense. The market is down becuase traders are acting like a spoiled child and decided to kick and scream a little.

market is down because traders don't like uncertainty.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/01/21/three-cheers-for-obamas-banking-reforms/

Barack Obama is coming out swinging today, and good for him for doing so. Let’s go through the press release line by line:

WASHINGTON, DC- President Obama joined Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve; Bill Donaldson, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Congressman Barney Frank, House Financial Services Chairman; Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Banking Committee and the President’s economic team to call for new restrictions on the size and scope of banks and other financial institutions to rein in excessive risk taking and to protect taxpayers.

Note here how Geithner and Summers just become part of “the President’s economic team”, while Volcker gets top billing. This is, as Simon Johnson says, an important change of course — and it’s one which is being supported by both Dodd and Frank, so there’s a good chance it can pass. After all, the Republicans tend to hate Wall Street even more than the Democrats.

The President’s proposal would strengthen the comprehensive financial reform package that is already moving through Congress.

This is also a good sign: in the wake of Dodd making noises about softening existing legislative proposals, Obama has come out and said, quite rightly, that we should push hard in the opposite direction, and tighten them up.

“While the financial system is far stronger today than it was a year one year ago, it is still operating under the exact same rules that led to its near collapse,” said President Barack Obama. “My resolve to reform the system is only strengthened when I see a return to old practices at some of the very firms fighting reform; and when I see record profits at some of the very firms claiming that they cannot lend more to small business, cannot keep credit card rates low, and cannot refund taxpayers for the bailout. It is exactly this kind of irresponsibility that makes clear reform is necessary.”

OK, so this is populism. But populism in the service of a good cause is no great sin.

The proposal would:

1. Limit the Scope-The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.

This is a good idea, but cutting back on prop trading, in particular, is going to be hard. Goldman Sachs has told me repeatedly that they don’t have prop trading: everything they do is ultimately for the benefit of their clients. Absent a corner of the trading floor with a big flashing “prop desk” sign above it, in practice it’s very hard to draw the line between the kind of daily trading that any broker dealer has to do, on the one hand, and proprietary trading for a bank’s own account, on the other. Both of them involve the bank taking risk and making money, after all.

The restriction on sponsoring hedge funds and private-equity shops makes sense: after all, the in-house hedge funds at Bear Stearns played a large role in its demise. The banks will just spin off those holdings to shareholders, I don’t think this is a big deal for them.

2. Limit the Size- The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector. The President’s proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.

I love this. It’s bank liabilities which cause systemic risk: that’s why it’s bank liabilities which are subject to the bank tax. And as too-big-to-fail banks increasingly rely on wholesale liabilities rather than a more stable deposit base, it’s important to place some kind of restrictions on the degree to which they can do so. In his press conference, Obama said that banks should not be allowed to stray too far from their mission of serving depositors: he’s moving, here, towards a vision of narrow (or at least narrower) banking. Good for him.

Banks stocks are down in the wake of the speech, but not dramatically: it’s easy to get overexcited about a 6% fall in JP Morgan’s share price while forgetting that it’s still over $40 a share, compared to less than $15 in March. Indeed, its all-time high, back in 2007, was barely over $50. Let’s get the Republicans on board with this, and push it through. It’s probably our last chance to enact meaningful financial reform this generation.

Bulls...what affect does this have on manhattan RE ?

Short term, limiting the ability of traders who work for hte big six financial firms reduces money available for real estate. Long term its a plus. there will be more firms making money.

Obama had been seen as a crony capitalist and not doing what's right. Supporting Volcker, Reed, Donaldson, Henry Kaufman and others.

"reduces money available for real estate"

to be more precise, it reduces leverage, which is exactly what's needed. it's a great plus, it'll bring prices closer to real incomes.

"Don't forget about the trickle down effect. Private schools, drivers, doormen, retailers, nannies, brokers, etc. A lot of people in NYC are affected by lower profits on wall street."

-----

this reminds me of the unexpected rise in jobless claims. does anybody here knows whether the unemployed in the city are leaving? or staying put till unemployment insurance ends? how are the unemployed homeowners handling high housing costs (high living costs of nyc in general)?

Seems like people have short memories and forgot the risks that Citibank and Banc America exposed the tax payer too. Saying that they can't be financed to do this and have to risk failure IS CAPITALISM.

true RS, there's still the need to not allow banks to get too big to fail and to break apart those that are too big to fail. you nailed it, BAC, C, also WFC and JPM... those that were used to acquire failed pieces of the financial mess will need to shrink in order to make the system less unstable.

there shouldn't be a single piece of the puzzle left that's too big to fail. otherwise, they have the taxpayer by the b*lls.

How about a spin off and IPO?

Solves the problem. A perfectly acceptable solution

Obama should have focus on the banks before focusing on Health care. That cost him Brown to win Massachusetts and most likely his health reform to pass. Bad timing Mr President!

Bad timing Mr President!
-----

and that's not about to change! after health care he wants/needs to take on SS and Medicare/Medicaid as they are providing us record deficits... i'd print and avoid talking about the issue, the effects of the printing for entitlements/unfunded public pensions could be blamed on the printing for bailing out the banks for a while.

Focusing on health care, Carbon emissions, Gitmo and 9/11 was the wrong priority given the circumstances. Sledgehammer is right... the result was Brown Mass win. Bill Clinton coined the phase, "It's the Economy Stupid!"

yep, but he did actually more about the economy than many of the angry voters wanted to. bailing banks, bailing homeowners, that's is very unpopular within the independent sector that voted against him.

"Solves the problem. A perfectly acceptable solution"

Then I wouldn't sell shares too soon, owning an early piece of a GS spin off sounds good to me. Funny how all the doom and gloomers are back predicting the next apocalypse, didn't they learn a lesson in dooms day prognostications from 12 months ago? Remember when everyone was moving out of the city and we were all pitching tents in Central Park?

> HA! Love it. This coming from the least-informed poster in memory.

you mean you, rangersfan?

"Funny how all the doom and gloomers are back predicting the next apocalypse, didn't they learn a lesson in dooms day prognostications from 12 months ago? Remember when everyone was moving out of the city and we were all pitching tents in Central Park? "

Remember when the folks who were proven incredibly wrong created strawmen arguments to save face?

Oh wait, that was just now...

"i think this absolutely crushes manhattan RE"

marco, that is your standard answer to any news. May as well just change your moniker to that statement.

"How about a spin off and IPO?"

If you believe the economic idea of conglomerate discounts, two Goldmans should actually be worth more than one. But I guess you have to quantify losing access to the cheap money.

How does shedding PE funds even factor into the general approach? Unless I am wrong Goldman raises money from third parties and invests it. All they can lose is their investors' capital. Am I missing something?

"How about a spin off and IPO?"

This is a point that I raised about a year ago. Firms will split-up, spin-off, do whatever they have to do to make $ and more firms will create more jobs in the front-, middle- and back-office.

"Remember when the folks who were proven incredibly wrong created strawmen arguments to save face?"

Yep, you know this tactic very well. I think we should start calling it the somewhereelse.

There they go again...

What do you think is the average amount of time a thread can remain interesting before being hijacked for some petty score-settling and name calling?

wow, bjw really is obsessed with me.

somewherelse - seems to me that everyone is on to you even though you change your handles quicker than spitzer changes callgirls.

"If you believe the economic idea of conglomerate discounts, two Goldmans should actually be worth more than one."

true, AOTBE. But they're not equal.

How much of Goldman's proprietary trading profits came from knowledge they learned elsewhere? Or even just ACCESS to certain trades. Or SCALE. If those traders were independent and not "goldman", how many of those trades would have happened or still been profitable?

This is not a small change.

"Remember when the folks who were proven incredibly wrong created strawmen arguments to save face?"

Spoken by the person who was asked to provide detail regarding his clawback strawman and disappeared from the thread.

juice, juice, poor juice, I replied a few days later.

Sorry I can't be on the board every waking minute to explain things to you...

not to mention, sounds like you need some help from wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

maybe now you can use the term correctly.

malthus - gs also makes hefty sums by investing prop money in private equity deals. much more than the fees they take in as an adviser to clients.

malthus, 6 posts. I'll admit, I did nothing to help on this thread. I succumbed to the "if you can't beat 'em" philosophy.

"This is a point that I raised about a year ago. Firms will split-up, spin-off, do whatever they have to do to make $ and more firms will create more jobs in the front-, middle- and back-office."

waverly, I recall that - if it happens, it's a nice call by you. I don't know if it'll add enough jobs to undo all the damage, but it would definitely be a nice change of pace.

"malthus - gs also makes hefty sums by investing prop money in private equity deals. much more than the fees they take in as an adviser to clients."

actually, they make more money than advisory in principal investements as a whole. Private equity is just a small part of that (methinks rangersfan doesn't understand that "private equity" means an investment type in particular, not investing on your own behalf in general).

"I replied a few days later."

Yes, I just read your post and as usual it did nothing to strengthen your "argument"

"Sorry I can't be on the board every waking minute to explain things to you..."

That is a benefit to all of us, the less time you spend on this board the better.

"If you believe the economic idea of conglomerate discounts, two Goldmans should actually be worth more than one. But I guess you have to quantify losing access to the cheap money."

Both good points malthus

private equity is a particular asset class that MAY or may not be lumped into principal investing. depends on the firm and how these businesses are set up. (methinks somewherelse is resorting to his typical freshman team debate tactics and trying to play on words). tiresome act.

> Yes, I just read your post and as usual it did nothing to strengthen your "argument"

Got it, now you changed your story from me running away, to you just not liking the post. Well done, juice.

> That is a benefit to all of us, the less time you spend on this board the better.

Yes, so rude of me to burst your bubble of made up fantasy. I should let you live with your head in the sand. No bubble! No recession! Awesome!

"private equity is a particular asset class that MAY or may not be lumped into principal investing. depends on the firm and how these businesses are set up. (methinks somewherelse is resorting to his typical freshman team debate tactics and trying to play on words). tiresome act."

No, proprietary investment in private equity is principal investing, no matter how you set up your business. Its definitional. its what the words mean. You can organize your company however you want, but it doesn't change reality.

That being said, if you now actually understand the difference between PE and the larger class of principal investments, that would mean your original statement was just wrong. Private equity on its own is not "much more" than advisory fees, as you claimed. I assumed that you were wrong on the categories because I didn't think you'd make this mistake, but apparently you did.

So, whichever you meant, you were incorrect rangersfan.