• 27 Apr 2009 at 10:49 AM

Goldman Breaks Record

“Listen people, we’ve got to turn up the heat. I want enough cash to pay back the TARP, get our warrants back, retire the FDIC insured debt, fill the bonus pool, buy Bank of America and dismantle it, acquire Gulfstream from General Dynamics to vertically integrate our corporate aviation needs, and elect Hank Paulson President in the next cycle. Get to work people. Especially you folks at the trading desks.”

Goldman Sachs’s so-called value-at-risk, the amount the New York-based bank estimates it could lose from trading in a day, jumped 22 percent to $240 million in the first quarter, twice what Morgan Stanley stands to lose, company reports show. VaR climbed 2.8 percent in the same period at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and dropped 14 percent at Credit Suisse Group AG.

Goldman Sachs Boosts Risk-Taking at Fastest Pace on Wall Street [Bloomberg]

Comments (15)

  1. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 10:59 AM

    Proves that Credit Suisse are a bunch of fuckin pussies

  2. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 11:07 AM

    Hit me
    Hit me
    Hit me
    D’OH!

  3. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 11:18 AM

    Is it considered “risk-taking” when the deck is stacked in your favor?
    The pit boss in Vegas didn’t buy my argument that I was simply “smarter” than everyone else by using loaded dice.

  4. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 11:22 AM

    Well played @3! Well played!

  5. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 11:48 AM

    Finance 1-on-1. Goldman and all other banks are essentially backstopped by their equity, then by fed. From a managers point of view this is an at the money our out of the money free call option. When they increase their risk, their call option increases in value.

  6. Posted by Anal_yst | April 27, 2009 at 11:55 AM

    Why does anyone still bother with VaR besides perhaps “yup, ok, moving on” sort of reaction? Is it just the biz media’s lack of understanding of risk management (or risk managers misunderstanding of same?

  7. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 12:05 PM

    Morgan Stanley doesn’t have a freaking clue WHAT their VAR number is. They just make the shit up as they go along. Fired their whistle-blower in that area if I recall correctly.

  8. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 12:14 PM

    what are the var numbers for a first year at kbw? cantor? twp?

  9. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 12:14 PM

    The best time to use the initialed phrase “VaR” is in an interview. No one uses it after that.

  10. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 12:53 PM

    @8, i hear stub numbers r off 69%

  11. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 1:08 PM

    So Goldman, given the current market it seems a little strange that you’re taking on so much risk. What is the thinking behind this?
    Well we have an inside man…I mean plan…I mean an internal plan, that we created here inside GS, that has absolutely nothing to do with anyone in the government that may have previously worked for us…because that would be crazy right? Next question.

  12. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 1:27 PM

    @5 don’t you mean 101? Wow. What school did you go to

  13. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 1:28 PM

    VaR who is your CEO

  14. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 3:30 PM

    I worked at Lehman, what is a VaR?

  15. Posted by guest | April 27, 2009 at 4:17 PM

    @12: Wow, you’re right.
    Finance 1-on-1 = Fuqua grad…

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