But not to ourselves! Comp is down, sort of!
Archive for October 2009
Goldman Sachs Reports 2009 Third Quarter Earnings Per Common Share of $5.25 (GS)
“Although the world continues to face serious economic challenges, we are seeing improving conditions and evidence of stabilization, even growth, across a number of sectors,” said Lloyd Blankfein. “Our client franchise businesses — advisory, financing, market making and asset management — contribute to and benefit from the overall improvement in conditions. Because the job market, and growth more generally, remain under stress, we continue to be focused on actively helping our clients in order to promote greater economic activity.”
Citigroup Posts Net Income of $101 Million (CNBC)
Loss of 27 cents a share.
Goldman Sachs Bonus Stigma May Overshadow Charitable Endeavors (Bloomberg)
This guy’s not happy: “Surely there are extraordinarily important uses of capital in a capital-constrained society that they might consider rather than just paying themselves sums beyond the dreams of avarice,” said Ben W. Heineman Jr.
Calpers Rocked By Pay To Play (WSJ)
Don’t tell Calpers that, though: “We are gathering facts to confirm that the $50 million in fees paid to Arvco did not come at our expense,” said spokeswoman Pat Macht.
City bankers ‘regularly offer prostitutes to clients’ (Guardian)
Your shock of the morning.
Bear Stearns Fund Managers Lied Repeatedly to Investors, Prosecutor Says (Bloomberg)
Several times! Not according to defense attorney Dane Butswinkas, though, who said his client Ralph Cioffi is a victim of the financial crisis. Also: “People counted on their ability to forecast the future — sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong, but they’re not criminal.”
$$$ “The financial system nearly collapsed,” the buzzed man in the bar told me, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.” [NYT]
$$$ Allen Stanford coughed up blood today. [AP]
$$$ Liz Claman: “If Yahoo fan groups spring up around us [because we're hot], that’s great. But it’s so tertiary to us. We are interested in communicating to viewers about money.” [Poynter]
$$$ Group Of Nuns Attacks Goldman Over Large Bonuses [BI]
Timmy G must be longing for the days when all he had to answer for was being tricked by Turbo Tax into not paying his taxes. According to Neil Barofsky, TG already has $168 million in AIG retention bonus dirty money on his hands and is on pace to add $198 million more. The rage stems from last March when “a failure of oversight by Treasury” led to multi-million pay days for executives of bailout champion AIG. But that was March when everybody was worried about Dow 5,000, not breaking out the confetti in celebration of Dow 10,000. This was back in the day when some people thought the economy really was going off a cliff. It’s not like he really had the time to deal with minor details like who at AIG was being paid what.
Unlike some people we don’t care where this thing closes. What we’d instead like you to do is predict the number of times, from the second this post goes up until the closing bell, our favorite business network verbally* mentions “Dow 10,000.” Don’t know what the prize will be for whoever gets it closer without going over but it’s gonna be good. For those of you with booze on hand, feel free to take this thing to its obvious drinking game conclusion and then bill us for the trip to the ER to have your stomach pumped.
One of the many lessons Bernie left behind is that it pays to hedge. It helps to prevent mild irritants like losing everything you had when the guy you entrusted all of your assets to turns out to be more of a masterful liar and thief than an investment demigod. But if you elected not to hedge the first time around, you probably will the next time. Two people burned by King Ponz have apparently learned their lesson and are hedging their exposure to the next phase of the Madoff saga, the lawsuit free-for-all.
It’s not just the Wall St/Main St. strife creating a cleavage issue. There is a revolution brewing. Battles lines are being drawn in the sand. Personal legacies are on the line. Indeed, some states believe that the time has finally come to test whether or not the recovery can walk on its own two legs without its PR firm cheering it on. The time has come to stop the stimulus signs.
“The more we reflected on it, the more we realized they were absolutely right: it’s not the best use of the money,” said (press secretary for the Georgia Department of Transportation David) Spear, who added that the decision would save tens of thousands of dollars that could be spent on more construction work.
But surely there must have been some method to the madness of carpet bombing the country with $1200 a piece signs.
UK Firms Can’t Have Women Around The Office On The Off Chance Someone Reaches Out And Touches Them
By Bess Levin
Fucking women. It’s not that financial services firms in the UK don’t want to employ them, or think they couldn’t do just as bang-up a job as the men. This is not one of those situations.* The Brits love the ladies and would like nothing than more to hire them, and maybe maul them a little on the job. And therein lies the problem. Not with the grabbing of asses, per se. Nothing wrong with that. The issue is with the obscene potential pay-out these chippies could collect in the event their colleagues or superiors decide through no fault of their own to get pawsy.
Whoever came closest to 1:22 without going over, please get in touch to collect your prize at this time. Over at CNBC they had the story queued up and ready to go before we “breached” 10k, obit-style.
Scott Wapner Rejects Your Theory That Dow 10,000 Is “Just A Number”
By Bess Levin“What do you mean it’s not important?! This is the god damn cat’s ass! Fuck you! Give me something! Don’t we screen these guests beforehand?! Jesus.” Also good: “How many of us think we’re going to close above 10,000? Gimme a show of hands. Get those things in the air.”
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Tags: and if he has to beat a comment out of you about how meaningful this occassion is, that's exactly what he's going to do