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AMERICANS should boycott the stock market. No, I'm not kidding. And this isn't going to be one of those funny columns. In fact, I'm deadly serious that investors shouldn't risk any more of their money until there are promises of a thorough investigation of Goldman Sachs. Over the past few years I've looked into the much-too-cozy relationship between Goldman and Washington. I've suspected that this Wall Street firm has been acting, in essence, as an arm of the government. And I am also pretty sure that if Goldman and Washington have something secret going on, the investment firm isn't doing...

Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market. It has paid back the billions of dollars, and then some, of taxpayer money the government forced it to take last October; raised billions of dollars in capital from private investors, including $5 billion from Warren Buffett; and urged its cadre of well-paid and high-performing executives to show some restraint on the conspicuous-consumption...

Securities regulators are examining weekly meetings at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in which research analysts give tips to traders and then to big clients, as the Wall Street giant considers disclosing these so-called trading huddles to all its clients. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that analysts at Goldman sometimes shared with traders and key clients short-term trading tips that sometimes differed from the firm's long-term research. Examiners at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry self-regulatory body known as Finra, and the Securities and Exchange Commission intend to ask Goldman for more information on these weekly get-togethers, people familiar...

The Federal Reserve chose a labor leader to succeed a former Goldman Sachs executive as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of New York's private-sector board of directors. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, shown in July, was named deputy chairman of the New York Fed. Denis Hughes, president of the New York state branch of the AFL-CIO, had been serving as acting chairman of the New York Fed board since May, when Stephen Friedman stepped down from the position. Mr. Friedman, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman and adviser to President George W. Bush, had faced questions about...

Before he became President George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary in 2006, Henry M. Paulson Jr. agreed to hold himself to a higher ethical standard than his predecessors. He not only sold all his holdings in Goldman Sachs, the investment bank he had run, but also specifically said that he would avoid any substantive interaction with Goldman executives for his entire term unless he first obtained an ethics waiver from the government. But today, seven months after Mr. Paulson left office, questions are still being asked about his part in decisions last fall to prop up the teetering financial system with...

Bottom line: he was in touch with Goldman a lot. While Mr. Paulson spoke to many Wall Street executives during that period, he was in very frequent contact with Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, according to a copy of Mr. Paulson’s calendars acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request. During the week of the A.I.G. bailout alone, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Blankfein spoke two dozen times, the calendars show, far more frequently than Mr. Paulson did with other Wall Street executives. On Sept. 17, the day Mr. Paulson secured his waivers, he and Mr. Blankfein spoke five times....

Lloyd C. Blankfein has a story about the cataclysm that nearly brought down all of Wall Street. It goes something like this: One by one, lesser banks were swept away by the financial storm of 2008. And as the floodwaters rose, no one, not even Goldman Sachs, seemed safe. The question, in Mr. Blankfein’s eyes, was how high the water would rise. But Washington stepped in with all those bailouts before the surge reached Goldman. The story, which was recounted by several friends and colleagues, represents a sobering private admission from Mr. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive. Publicly, it is a...

It seems my previous article has garnered a bit of criticism from someone I hold in rather high regard, indicating that perhaps I have been less than clear in my criticism. Let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money, and leveraging your wealth into making even more money! It doesn't surprise me that those with lots of money get "special dispensation" in the form of conversations with Treasury Secretaries and other members of the government. The "little people" - that is you and I - will never get that sort of treatment, simply because...

The attack on Warren Buffett continues. The latest to jump on the pile is Karl Denninger. He makes the charge that Buffett may have taken advantage of taxpayers, when buying his stake in Goldman Sachs: ...was he really just making a bet? The evidence says otherwise; Warren's statements both at the time and later one made clear that he had every expectation, and perhaps even inside information, that the government would not allow these firms to fail. That is, he didn't make a bet - he jumped in front of the taxpayer, a form of legal "front running", to garner...

Goldman Sachs is once again warning the world of a coming spike in oil prices that will remind everyone of 2008. The current financial crisis is to blame. While we focus on fixing the banking sector, we've forgotten that there are fundamental problems with the commodites markets. The spike from 2008 will return because there's been "decades" of poor investment decisions by oil producers. When the economy kicks into gear around the world, supply shortages will become problematic, and the price of oil will spike. Says Goldman via Alphaville, "As the commodity markets rebound with the broader global economy we...

Goldman Sachs traders in London and New York made a daily profit of more than $100 million (£58.8 million) on an astonishing 46 days during the past quarter. The record figure revealed by the bank this afternoon meant it broke the $100 million-a-day barrier on three out of every four working days. As market conditions improved during the quarter, it easily beat its 34-day record for making that figure in January, February and March. Goldman lost money on trading activities on only two days in April, May and June, compared with eight days in the preceding three months. Its record profits and...

Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed,...

When I was 14, Warren Buffett wrote me a letter. It was a response to one I’d sent him, pitching an investment idea. For a kid interested in learning stocks, Buffett was a great role model. His investing style — diligent security analysis, finding competent management, patience — was immediately appealing. Buffett was kind enough to respond to my letter, thanking me for it and inviting me to his company’s annual meeting. I was hooked. Today, Buffett remains famous for investing The Right Way. He even has a television cartoon in the works, which will groom the next generation of...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS - News) Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein told employees to avoid making high profile purchases, the New York Post said, citing sources. Blankfein, who first asked employees to avoid large purchases late last year, has stepped up his campaign in recent weeks, a source told the paper. "This is a sensitive time for us, and (Blankfein) wants to make sure that we're not being seen living high on the hog," the paper quoted an anonymous Goldman executive as saying. Goldman has faced a torrent of unwanted publicity recently including an unflattering story in Rolling Stone magazine,...

GOLDMAN PRINCES TOLD: SPEND LIKE PAUPERS Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employess to avoid making big-ticket, high-profile purchases as the gold-plated Wall Street firm hunkers down amid a firestorm of public and political anger over outsize bonus payments. According to sources at the bank, Blankfein has Goldman in particular, should be toned down in light of the billions in bailout money that banks, including Goldman, have gotten from Uncle Sam. A source within the bank said Blankfein first began calling for an end to the conspicuous consumption late last year, but has stepped up his campaign in...

Americans are angry at Wall Street, and rightly so. First the financial industry plunged us into economic crisis, then it was bailed out at taxpayer expense. And now, with the economy still deeply depressed, the industry is paying itself gigantic bonuses. If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention. But crashing the economy and fleecing the taxpayer aren’t Wall Street’s only sins. Even before the crisis and the bailouts, many financial-industry high-fliers made fortunes through activities that were worthless if not destructive from a social point of view. And they’re still at it. Consider two recent news stories. One...

It's almost like they know what's going to happen. For awhile there, Goldman Sachs (GS) was making a fool of itself in the oil market with wild-eyed predictions like $200/barrel that never came true. But as FT Alphaville notes this morning, they've been pretty bang-on over the last few months. Check out the chart. It's almost scary. .

Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say. The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party. However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention...

Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say. The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party. However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention...

No further details at this time.

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) were issued subpoenas by a U.S. Senate panel looking for evidence of fraud in the 2008 mortgage-market meltdown, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The paper said the focus of the investigation is on whether internal communications show executives at the banks had private doubts on the soundness of the mortgage-related securities they were putting together. The people told the paper Washington Mutual Inc, which is now mostly owned by JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), was also issued a subpoena by the...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Deutsche Bank AG were issued subpoenas by a U.S. Senate panel looking for evidence of fraud in the 2008 mortgage-market meltdown, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The paper said the focus of the investigation is on whether internal communications show executives at the banks had private doubts on the soundness of the mortgage-related securities they were putting together. The people told the paper Washington Mutual Inc, which is now mostly owned by JP Morgan Chase & Co, was also issued a subpoena by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on...

Is history repeating itself at Goldman Sachs? In late 2006, Goldman shrewdly began backing away from the residential mortgage market. With little fanfare, the firm began aggressively hedging its exposure to home loans, in particular mortgages to borrowers with shaky credit histories. This savvy and somewhat stealthy strategy enabled Goldman to pawn off lots of its soon-to-be toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on other institutions — forcing those foolhardy speculators to pay the price when the subprime market blew up. And much to everyone else’s chagrin, Goldman even made money off the housing meltdown when some of its hedges —...

The image of Goldman Sachs (GS) as a Borg-like hive mind that breeds a bald master-race of capitalists has picked up speed during the last month. Rabble-rouser Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone memorably called Goldman "a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Joe Hagan in New York magazine devoted several pages to "Goldman's current public tarring." The controversy has even attracted the genius of Michael Lewis, who wrote a searingly funny column in the wounded voice of the firm, arguing that Goldman owns only one of the...

A lawyer for Goldman Sachs has been accused of luring an underage teenager with explicit internet chat and then trying to consummate the cyber-affair by traveling to Westchester. Todd Genger, was caught in a sting operation aimed at perverts who solicit young girls for sex, the Daily News reports. From the Daily News: In reality, the "girl" Genger was chasing was an undercover investigator posing as a teen in the chat room, the Westchester County district attorney's office said. Genger, a Manhattan resident who is married and has three children, was snared after a series of Internet conversations that began...

A lawyer for Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs was caught in a sting operation aimed at perverts who solicit young girls for sex, officials said Tuesday. Todd Genger, 33, is accused of trying to lure an underage teen with explicit chat on the Internet and then traveling to Westchester to consummate the cyber-affair. In reality, the "girl" Genger was chasing was an undercover investigator posing as a teen in the chat room, the Westchester County district attorney's office said. Genger, a Manhattan resident who is married and has three children, was snared after a series of Internet conversations that began...

So is there good news, or bad? Are we poised for an economic rebound or are we perched on the edge of another unnerving cycle in which Wall Street analysts — along with politicians with a huge stake in talking things up — try to chat us out of our funk? Goldman Sachs, fresh from returning the $10 billion infusion of taxpayer money that helped keep it afloat during last fall's credit crisis, posted a record-breaking $3 billion profit in the second quarter. That's enough to dedicate nearly half the firm's revenues to compensation — that is, to the eye-popping...

OVER the last two years, it has looked like New York would have to adjust to living without so many golden eggs from the Wall Street goose. But now Wall Street profits are booming again -- so we can relax, right? Wrong. This is an empty boom that's based on government subsidy, not economic reality. Goldman Sachs and the rest are benefitting from conditions that can't last -- the two big ones being zero interest rates and the implicit backing of the federal government in the wake of last fall's bailouts. These conditions let Wall Street make big, speculative bets...

I'm curious about the physical co-location and possible data links between exchange and GS servers. Can anyone provide a description?

Federal Reserve letter on GS is at link

You've got to hand it to Max Keiser; the man just doesn't mince his words. Videos at site

In his 2008 bestseller, "Wealth, War and Wisdom," hedge fund manager Barton Biggs warns that investors must "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure." And to prepare for a breakdown of civilization, "your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food ... It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc." Bloomberg Markets suggested that by "etc." he meant guns, as Biggs added "a few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage." The end of Wall...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., under fire for reaping record trading profits in the teeth of the financial crisis, is now fighting to defend one of its major sources of revenue -- commodities trading -- as regulators consider setting limits on Wall Street speculators. Goldman and other big investment firms are scheduled to appear at a series of hearings held by the Commodity Futures Trade Committee starting Tuesday, as the Obama administration launches its biggest move yet to clamp down on commodities speculation, which has roiled prices from oil to corn and wheat in recent years. At issue for the investment...

The growing debate over "flash" orders, amplified late last week when a prominent U.S. senator weighed in, could spell trouble for Direct Edge, the fast-growing stock trading venue that has the most to lose if they are banned. Rival exchanges, some of whom also offer flashes, have been coy on whether they support the service and may quietly hope they are eliminated for good. Direct Edge was the first to start "flashing" customer orders -- for fractions of a second -- to certain market members before routing them elsewhere to all participants. The practice gives banks, hedge funds, and some...

Housing Doom Word 4 the Day: ingenuous Reuters this morning.[1] A Goldman spokesman just emailed me a quick statement, trying to downplay the firm’s involvement in HFT. The spokesman notes that “even using the broadest definition, high frequency shares trading accounted for less than 1% of Goldman Sachs’ total revenue in the first half of 2009.” The spokesman goes on to note that Goldman’s proprietary trading HFT desk does not receive so-called “flash quotes” from stock exchanges. A flash quote is a controversial practice in which an exchange allows some hyperactive HFT desks to get a sneak peak of other...

If we agree on a few basic things that we all want, breaking up Goldman Sachs and most of the other big Wall Street banks makes a lot of sense. Let's start with the wants: The taxpayer should never again be asked to save the banks from the costs of their own investment decisions; American consumers and businesses should have access to financial products, credit and financing; bank shareholders deserve a chance to make some money. This is by no means a sure thing, but it seems as if a bunch of baby Goldmans are more likely to give us...

We still don't know the truth behind Goldman Sachs' trading profits. Goldman Sachs made $5.7 billion of trading revenue in the last quarter. That run rate (over $22 billion per annum) is almost as much as the pre-crisis peak. Twenty-Two billion dollars per annum is roughly $200 per year per household in the United States. If it is someone's trading revenue, it presumably comes out of someone else's pocket, so measuring it per household is appropriate. The trading revenue of "Wall Street" investment banks (including Barclays ( BCS - news - people ), the trading parts of Citibank and similar...

Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer. High-frequency traders often confound other investors by issuing and then canceling orders almost simultaneously. Loopholes in market rules give high-speed investors an early glance at how others are trading. And their computers can essentially bully slower investors into giving up profits — and then disappear before anyone even knows they were there... It was July 15, and Intel, the computer chip giant, had reporting robust earnings...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has done it again – booking a $4.1bn (£2.5bn) paper profit on the $5bn he invested in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis. Mr Buffett, known as the "Sage of Omaha" for his money-making ability, has made the return in one of the bleakest periods for investing in decades, benefiting from the recent uptick in Goldman's share price. If that weren't enough, the 78-year-old is to star in a cartoon series – The Secret Millionaires' Club – to be shown on AOL's website, the aim of which is to teach children the basics...

We must believe in luck; for how else can we explain the success of those we dislike. Guy de Blonay certainly knows that those who “dislike” Goldman Sachs don’t attribute its success to luck. Therefore, in the UK’s Telegraph this week, he employs that line from poet Jean Cocteau only to poke fun at skeptics who have other reasons for believing the bank doesn’t come close to speaking the entire truth when it attributes its remarkable money-making success to an “unusual effort...to recruit people who...share [its] commitment to leadership in business and to the communities where [it] works.” In contrast...

It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors’ orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices. It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets. Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else’s expense.

G/S morphed into a commercial bank to take advantage of gov't handouts, yet Goldman is really a hedge fund on steroids, with trading accounting for 69% of gross revenue in the first quarter........ a big chunk of its trading involves US govt debt -- federal, state and local...... G/S has a huge vested interest in the US digging a deeper and deeper hole.........trading govt IOUs is big business.....one of the few growth markets on Wall Street. IPO's, M&A's, etc, have yet to recover but the US will borrow a record $3.25 trillion in the current fiscal year -- four times...

Protest launched over US state department nominee By Greg Farrell and Francesco Guerrera in New York and Daniel Dombey in Washington Published: July 23 2009 01:35 | Last updated: July 23 2009 01:35 An advocacy group on Wednesday launched a campaign to derail the nomination of a Goldman Sachs executive to a high position in the US state department because of his past role in raising public funds for a Chinese company linked to Sudan. Public Accountability Initiative, a not-for-profit organisation, said Robert Hormats, whom Barack Obama nominated this week as undersecretary of state for economic affairs, had made misleading...

In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" --investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good. " Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also...

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again -~&~- The FIRST THING YOU NEED TO KNOW about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's...

Given the public outcry over news of Goldman Sachs's recent record earnings, you'd think many people would prefer Goldman had lost money. Does that really make sense? I can understand why some people are upset, since I've heard from many of them. Their argument is that Goldman Sachs, like other recipients of funds from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, might well have failed without taxpayer assistance. Now, without the slightest sign of being in any way chastened, Goldman bankers have gone out and earned so much that they stand to receive huge bonuses that rival those at the height...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers received more than five million dollars last year from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and collected 2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street firms benefiting from government bailout money, The New York Times reported Saturday. Citing new financial information about top officials in the administration of Barack Obama, the newspaper said Summers had made 40 paid appearances, including a speech to the investment firm Goldman Sachs, for which he was paid 135,000 dollars. Summers, a former president of Harvard University and treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, leads...

Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, disclosure forms released by the White House showed on Friday. Summers was also paid $2.7 million in speaking fees by a range of organizations and companies, including several troubled Wall Street financial firms. The disclosure documents on Summers and other White House officials advising Obama on the global financial crisis covered 2008 and the first few months of this year. Summers became an official adviser on January 20 when Obama took office. Summers, who was...

Money can't buy love? For proof, look no further than Goldman Sachs. Last week, the firm reported a spectacular quarterly profit -- close to $3.5 billion for the bank and about $385,000 in compensation for each employee for the first half of the year -- and right on cue, the braying began for the heads of the Goldmanites. Earlier this month, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, in a comprehensive exercise in conspiracy mongering, primed the pump of outrage with his article "The Great American Bubble Machine." Now a chorus of supporters has chimed in, shocked that in a recession the evil...

Let's dispense with this sort of bilge from The Washington Post right here: Money can't buy love? For proof, look no further than Goldman Sachs. Last week, the firm reported a spectacular quarterly profit -- close to $3.5 billion for the bank and about $385,000 in compensation for each employee for the first half of the year -- and right on cue, the braying began for the heads of the Goldmanites. Earlier this month, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, in a comprehensive exercise in conspiracy mongering, primed the pump of outrage with his article "The Great American Bubble Machine." Now a...