Posts belonging to Category Goldman Sachs



Layoffs at Wall Street Firms Begin to Reach Senior Levels

 

It is widely known that Wall Street firms have been cutting jobs since the financial crisis. Recently, Goldman Sachs began laying off upper middle-tier personnel, such as managing directors. Managing directors are compensated at levels below “partnership managing directors” at Goldman (the equivalent of “senior managing directors” at other firms), but above the junior vice […]

Was Facebook’s Disastrous IPO Rigged by Wall Street?

 

The house always wins. That saying was originally meant to warn people away from the Vegas Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard. But sometimes it applies even more strongly to Wall Street. Recently, investors who wanted to get in on the next Google lost a ton of money on the Facebook IPO, while Wall Street did […]

Legal Mistake Sheds Light on Unscrupulous Wall Street Practices

 

Last week lawyers representing Goldman Sachs and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch inadvertently released embarrassing documents detailing unethical trading practices and complete disregard for the interests of smaller clients (See “Accidentally Released ? and Incredibly Embarrassing ? Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in ‘Naked Short Selling,’” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone and “Goldman, Merrill E-Mails […]

Wall Street Firms Apparently Planning Massive Job Cuts

 

Wall Street banks could soon cut as many as 21,000 jobs in New York alone, say Wall Street consultants and recruiters. Worldwide cuts could be even larger (“Large layoffs loom on Wall Street,” Stephen Gandel, CNN Money). While the stock market is up this year, and many smaller investment banks have been hiring, and the […]

Second Circuit Court Of Appeals: Greed Not A Sufficient Motive For Fraud

 

A federal appeals court has upheld a district court’s dismissal of a securities fraud case involving the sale of a collateralized debt obligation (CDO). The CDO, named Davis Square, was collateralized by residential mortgage-backed securities and underwritten by Goldman Sachs in 2006 (“Goldman Sachs Wins Appeal of Ruling Dismissing CDO Suit,” by Bob Van Voris, […]

Wall Street Firms Continue to Cover Up for Each Other

 

Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman warned Morgan Stanley employees not to circulate a New York Times op-ed piece by former Goldman employee Greg Smith that blasted Goldman’s culture as “morally bankrupt” and said that success at Goldman was often achieved by selling products that the firm wanted to get rid of. Smith wrote the article […]

Bloombergs (The Mayor And The Company) Pile On Greg Smith–Why?

 

In the wake of Greg Smith’s op-ed piece about why he is leaving Goldman Sachs, the press has been inundated with all sorts of opinions and comments both supportive and critical. Some question Smith’s motives; others question Goldman’s motives in attacking him. Few address Greg Smith’s central point ? that Goldman puts its own interests […]

Goldman Sachs’ Rich Tradition Of Putting Its ‘Muppets’ Last

 

William D. Cohan is skeptical of Greg Smith’s claim that he only recently discovered that Goldman Sachs put its own interests ahead of its clients. Goldman, Cohan says, has a 143 year history of duping clients, and Smith, if he is to be believed, just did not use his Stanford education to check the publicly […]

Goldman Executive Resigns Over “Morally Bankrupt” Culture At Goldman Sachs

 

Greg Smith, a twelve-year veteran of Goldman Sachs, who had previously appeared on one of Goldman’s recruiting videos, resigned recently. He said he was leaving because the “put-the-client’s-interest-first” culture that had attracted him and held the firm together for 140-plus years had been replaced by a predatory “make-the-firm-money-by-ripping-off-clients” culture. The culture changed as result of […]

Is the SEC Too Soft on Major Wall Street Firms?

 

Questions continue to arise regarding the too-cozy relationship between the SEC and Wall Street. Recent reports claim that the SEC, when settling with big Wall Street firms, has a practice of granting waivers that preserve special privileges enjoyed by those firms, and protect them from serious consequences that would otherwise result from their wrongdoing. For […]