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David Weidner's Writing on the Wall
April 16, 2010, 12:00 p.m. EDT · Recommend (3) · Post:
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The bailouts worked, and that's the problem
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Why Gannett's numbers matter today
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The smoke around Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is now a four-alarm blaze, but at the heart of the inferno is an ill-defined issue crucial to Wall Street: What does it mean to make a market?
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday shocked Wall Street by charging Goldman /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs (GS 163.00, -21.27, -11.54%) with securities fraud over the sale of mortgage-backed securities. Goldman shares tumbled 10% on the news. Read more about SEC's charges against Goldman.
Reuters Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein
The SEC charged that "one of the world's largest hedge funds, Paulson & Co., paid Goldman Sachs to structure a transaction in which Paulson could take short positions against mortgage securities chosen by Paulson based on a belief that the securities would experience credit events." See SEC complaint against Goldman.
Goldman has been under fire for a multitude of alleged sins: for fleecing taxpayers through the bailout of American International Group Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!aig/quotes/nls/aig (AIG 39.68, -0.30, -0.75%) , to buying tax credits to the recent disclosure one of its directors may have tipped off a hedge fund with inside information.
Of all of the accusations, none has hurt the firm in more than poor public relations -- until now.
It isn't the first time Goldman's moves surrounding mortgage-backed securities have come under fire. Phil Angelides, chairman of the government's Financial Inquiry Commission, famously said about Goldman's bets against securities it underwrote "It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes, then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars."
The comment made in January was directed at Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, who responded -- to a question about whether he thought the practice of shorting securities as they come to market was unethical, legal or proper -- in a way that might hint at how Goldman plans to defend itself.
"Well, the way it's -- the short answer is this is the practice of a market maker, and I would like to explain this. But the answer is I do think that the behavior is improper," Blankfein said, according to a transcript.
"When we sell something as a principal, which is what we are as a market maker, the next minute that item will have gone up, in which case we'll wish we hadn't sold it that minute, or it will go down, in which case we'll actually be glad we did for our own P&L, and sorry for the person who bought it.," Blankfein said, according to the transcript. "But we are market makers in that. In most of these cases, the person who came to us came to us for the exposure that they wanted to have."
In this case that person would apparently be John Paulson, who has won acclaim as the investors whose bets against the mortgage market made Paulson & Co. and its investors fabulously wealthy.
Blankfein's point is the prevailing ideology at every investment bank: customers such as Paulson and the sellers of mortgage securities are counterparties not clients. Goldman, Blankfein seems to argue, is an intermediary, albeit one that makes a fortune in fees from those counterparties. See related commentary on Blankfein's remarks.
For that reason, the case against Goldman may be tough to prove. Brokerages package securities and then provide all of their customers ways to buy them or hedge them.
But if prosecutors can prove there was intentional fraud, the case would not only be a damaging blow to Goldman, it would change Wall Street and what it means to make a market.
David Weidner covers Wall Street for MarketWatch.
David Weidner is the Wall Street columnist for MarketWatch. He formerly covered M&A and financial services at The Daily Deal, American Banker and Dow Jones. He writes the Writing on the Wall column which appears Tuesday on MarketWatch and Thursdays on WSJ.com. He also is a regular contributor to the News Hub.
Biggest U.S. newspaper publisher may be harbinger of rally in sector.
11:57 a.m. Today11:57 a.m. April 16, 2010
- sohcammer | 11:13 a.m. Today11:13 a.m. April 16, 2010
"David Weidner's Writing on the Wall: Goldman and the 'faulty brakes' argument: The smoke around Goldman Sachs Grou... http://bit.ly/bIIoeP" 12:15 p.m. EDT, April 16, 2010 from davidweidner
"RT @zerobeta: You know GS frontran that volcano. There is no better Geothermal Arb desk on the street." 3:35 p.m. EDT, April 15, 2010 from davidweidner
"the market has its freq on http://is.gd/btFjg" 5:12 a.m. EDT, April 15, 2010 from davidweidner
"Kerry Killinger finally got into the Wall Street club. http://bit.ly/cwQv5K" 10:47 a.m. EDT, April 13, 2010 from davidweidner
"David Weidner's Writing on the Wall: The bailouts worked, and that's the problem: The good news is that the bailou... http://bit.ly/dmWC26" 11:56 p.m. EDT, April 12, 2010 from davidweidner
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