A Goldman Trading Scandal? (Reuters)
Matthew Goldstein: "While most in the US were celebrating the 4th of July, a Russian immigrant living in New Jersey was being held on federal charges of stealing top-secret computer trading codes from a major New York-based financial institution--that sources say is none other than Goldman Sachs.
The allegations, if true, are big news because the codes the accused man, Sergey Aleynikov, tried to steal is the secret code to unlocking Goldman's automated stocks and commodities trading businesses. Federal authorities allege the computer codes and related-trading files that Aleynikov uploaded to a German-based website help this major "financial institution" generate millions of dollars in profits each year."
Seven U.S. Banks Seized in Busiest Year for Closures Since 1992 (Bloomberg)
SheBair's had her hands full.
GM Asset Sale Gets Judge's Nod (WSJ)
So that's exciting.
Capital Fund CEO Aguilar Killed in Gliding Accident But Don't Worry, Your $ Is Safe (Bloomberg)
"The firm has gone through several crises in the past and we want to reassure our investors that this terrible event will not interrupt CFM's high level of service or impact its ability to provide outstanding long-term investment returns," the e- mailed letter to investors dated yesterday said. "Jean-Pierre has assembled a terrific team, where all individuals are important but none, not even himself, are critical."
Ryanair wants passengers to STAND UP during flights (Daily Mail)
Ryanair estimates it would be able to pack in 30 percent more passengers while slashing costs by 20 percent. No word on how this will be affected.
SEC May Reinstate Rules For Short-Selling (NYT)
"You want some sort of a dampener in periods like the fourth quarter of last year," Joseph M. Mecane, the chief administrative officer for United States markets at the NYSE said, "and let the stock breathe a bit."
Mob Scene For Jacko Funeral (NYP)
Up to 1 million "Jackophiles" expected to hit up the Staples Center memorial, tickets for which were selling for up to $20,000 on eBay late last night.
Biden: "We Misread How Bad The Economy Was" (ABC)
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:30AM
Uncle Joe!
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:30AM
Is Sergey related to Aleksey?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:32AM
re GS, I like how Zero Hedge put at the bottom of his write-up "major hat tip Matt Goldstein of Reuters." yeah, douche, HE BROKE/WROTE the damn story.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:33AM
@2 only in that they are both phenomenal dancers.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:37AM
hah, "Jackophiles."
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:40AM
What sane person would fly RyanAir?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:41AM
@6 I'd give 'em a shot.
-joe biden
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:45AM
"The firm has gone through several crises in the past and we want to reassure our investors that this terrible event will not interrupt CFM's high level of service or impact its ability to provide outstanding long-term investment returns,"
classy
Posted by KevinB , Jul 06, 2009 7:46AM
At 7:38 am today, Bryan Marsal, the new CEO in charge of unwinding Lehman, admits on CNBC:
[The regulators get paid a pittance to monitor the system compared to what we pay the quants from MIT] "to circumvent the system."
Not to develop new ways to create wealth. Not to develop better algorithms than other firms. "To circumvent the system". Just another reason I want to keep my money off Wall St.
Posted by wcburrs87 , Jul 06, 2009 7:48AM
@KevinB, that's great, because it sounds like you have no money to put into "Wall St.".
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:52AM
@9 sure youll keep your money off Wall St..... until 6 years from now when the S&P is up 32% in 10 months. Then its back to day trading at Scottrade youll get clobbered, cry and swear off of Wall St again.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:52AM
grand conspiracy theory-- goldman theft, sec short selling and joe biden pronouncements are all related. the theft will reveal that they were propping up the market all along, so the govt starts this message that the stats they were relying on weren't accurate, to cover the prop, and finally, the sec reinstates short selling rules and soon ban on all sales just so the market doesn't fall to 0....
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:54AM
@12 I'm sure if you tried you could incorporate the Ryanair/Jacko stuff too (Biden was a huge fan).
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 7:57AM
"Up to 1 million "Jackophiles" expected to hit up the Staples Center memorial, tickets for which were selling for up to $20,000 on eBay late last night."
got mine for 15 bucks.
-joe b.
Posted by Revmachine21 , Jul 06, 2009 7:59AM
Serge is light in the loafers.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:00AM
also, who else is hoping Amanda Drury is showing those righteous T's again today?
-JB
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:01AM
Lloyd Blankfein has four words for you Russkie fucks: not in our house!
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:02AM
does anyone else think george stephanopoulos (biden clip) looks just like dan loeb?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:03AM
I'm gonna beat this bitch's ass.
-Larry Summers
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:03AM
kenny g wasn't responsible for taking that nice little trader away from ny was he?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:05AM
@20 from the article: "Which Chicago firm hired Aleynikov? Inquiring minds want to know. But you can rule out the giant hedge fund conglomerate Citadel. It’s not them."
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:07AM
Goldy Sucks - stealing for a living
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:08AM
@21 that proves nothing.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:12AM
@21-- how strange, i don't know if this article was earlier or later:
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idESN0518022220090706?rpc=44&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
"Which Chicago firm hired Aleynikov? The job he took in Chicago, according to the criminal complaint, paid nearly three times more than his $400,000 salary at Goldman."
but anyway, i think i'll now put my pennies with zerohedge's suggestion
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/case-quant-trading-industrial-sabotage-about-destroy-goldman-sachs
get-smarty company or something
Posted by wcburrs87 , Jul 06, 2009 8:21AM
Anyone actually know what firm he was headed to out in Chicago?
Posted by merkin capital partners , Jul 06, 2009 8:35AM
the code was up up down down left right left right B A select start.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:41AM
hmmm, the millions making code relocating to chi-town, a dear place to the almighty?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:46AM
Nobody has confirmed that Serge worked for Goldman Sachs.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:50AM
@24 yes, b/c all of his conspiracy theories have turned out correct so far...
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:56AM
I'm guessing Chazz Reinhold will be attending his funeral since grief is nature's most powerful aphrodisiac. Look it up.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:58AM
@29
What you are saying is that ZH is mostly full of shit. Either he got fired from GS, which I seriously doubt, or is a daytrader that has gone to the deep deep end of lunacy. Glad he took EP with him.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 8:58AM
is that secret trading code only profitable if you have the client orders behind it to work with?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 9:14AM
@32 of course
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 06, 2009 9:15AM
@KevinB
I had the same argument with Rick Bookstabber at an FT Alphaville even a while back. He's of the school of thought we need to get as much data and make it available to as many people (regulators, academics, blah blah) so we can catch/avoid crap.
Despite my best efforts to the contrary, he apparently still does not grasp the problmen when you get paid $10mil to figure out how to game the system, when the regulator gets paid maybe $100m to pretend like he/she gives a rat's ass.
Posted by wcburrs87 , Jul 06, 2009 9:16AM
@30 - terrible joke. Go home.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 9:33AM
"since grief is nature's most powerful aphrodisiac."
If that's the case I bet all the former Lehman quants are horny as hell.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 9:50AM
@26- right inverted, down inverted, right, down
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 9:52AM
analyst did you mean 100k for the regulators? btw though you are absolutely right. If you want smart regulators who care enough to regulate well they need to know their covered if they go after someone and they also need to be payed competitively with the people they are trying to regulate.
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 06, 2009 9:56AM
@38
Yea. Literally I said to him at this panel discussion "How the hell do you expect some $100k/year bureaucrat (who's hoping for a private sector job down the road) to catch people who stand to make 100x+ that to game/beat the system?"
His response was a combination of dodging the question and then getting right back to pumping up his own agenda. For such a smart guy, he really misses the basics, although I guess that's often true for quant types like him.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 10:12AM
ZH has the absence of GS on the NYSE program trading list last week as part of some conspiracy to mask their activity, but it isn't it a lot more likely that they knew that this guy stole their program and put it out there so they stayed out of the market so as not to allow whomever to front run them.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 10:15AM
@40 ZH has everything as part of some conspiracy.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 10:20AM
@40 Front running GS? Say it isn't so...
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 10:23AM
@42- front running? i believe the au fait term is pre-hedging.
Posted by InfiniteGuest , Jul 06, 2009 10:24AM
@KevinB: "exploit" is more accurate than "circumvent," but Marsal is neither a banker nor a disinterested party.
@merkin: nice.
@37: run 6x, that's the reboot code.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 10:33AM
@42/43 - my name is bernie, what is "front running"?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 11:02AM
Bookstaber is more mouthpiece than quant.
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 12:12PM
your trading depends on you being at the trade milliseconds before "the next guy." how can you be sure that the guy behind you is going to be there milliseconds after you...?
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 12:18PM
Goldstein's GS trading scandal story - did excellent work on breaking this. So I find it really immature that the Bloomberg court reporter who tried to report the story as his new news (this morning) without a mention to Reuters or Goldstein for doing the leg work in sourceing the fact that Aleynikov worked for Goldman in program trading. And then not to add any new news to his report is simply irresponsible to Bloomberg readers.
Teri Buhl
Posted by guest , Jul 06, 2009 1:14PM
@26 You left out a second BA before the select start...and the select implies your doing two players.
Posted by KevinB , Jul 06, 2009 1:22PM
@44 - I agree that "exploit" is generally what people try to do with any system, but Marsal's exact word was "circumvent".
Analyst - Thanks for the support.
@10, @11 - Dicks, I bought oil at $30 and gold at $250 in 2000, and put the rest in Canadian government T-bills. Sold half the oil at $142, bought it back at $120 (unlike you tools, I admit it when I make a mistake), then sold it all at $100. Put the proceeds back in T-bills. Haven't had a drawdown in 9 years. Bet you can't say that.