The financial world is in a tizzy about an editorial published yesterday in the NY Times written by an executive of Goldman Sachs (who simultaneously tendered his resignation). It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of the company.
Ironically, the reaction from both supporters and detractors of Goldman Sachs is pretty much the same — “are you surprised that Goldman Sachs gleefully screws over their clients to further their goal of making as much money as possible, by any means?” Detractors because none of this is news — a Senate investigation and recent convictions for fraud said the same thing. Supporters of Goldman Sachs because they think that screwing over clients and rampant greed are normal and acceptable, so what’s the fuss all about?
Meanwhile, the value of Goldman’s stock dropped by over $2 billion on the news.
Wouldn’t it be really ironic if the author of the editorial shorted Goldman’s stock just before his piece was published, thus making lots of money at Goldman’s expense the same way that Goldman makes money at their clients’ expense?
2 Comments
Read “Snowball” about Warren Buffet. Goldman Sachs is brought up a lot in that.
Financial Advisors: My son started to take the course and thought I should. He soon stopped when he discovered that the object of a Financial Advisor is to part people from their money. as a tax preparer for 28 years, I saw this over and over and over on the 1009s coming to my clients from the “finacial Advisors”
They invest in Cummulative Preffereds bought below Par and paying 4-5%. When the prefferd stock matures, the Financial advisor ends up with a 7% gain and happily gives the people who invested with him their 2-3% and tells them how bad the market is.
Only answer is to do your own investing. If you have to go with a company, go with Vanguard which pays a smidgen more as they are investor owned so you get some of the profits.
E*Trade, Ameritrade, Vanguard all charge you very little for trades.
Wasn’t Buffet heavy into Goldman? I wonder how he made out.