Wall Street Emperor reports, sans appendage

In continuation of Wall Street's quarterly fantasy role playing game known as "gumptions and braggins", the Q1 Financial reporting charade I mean parade continues unabated with Wall Street Prince of Darkness firm Goldman Sachs reporting what looked like a blowout quarter until you read past the headlines to find that Goldman would have missed Analyst Estimates( oh the Horror!) if they stuck to their normal quarterly reporting cycle of Dec-Feb.

Is it any wonder that Goldman Lawyers are busy suing the new blogging site dedicated to uncovering their economically toxic machinations? http://www.goldmansachs666.com

It's unclear whether or not they are suing due to the said site's reference to Goldman or to the number of the Beast or do they hold the rights to both?

Not only did TARP bail out Goldman Sachs to the tune of around 25 Billion, but it also allowed them to skip their $2.15 per share/ 1 Billion loss incurred during December.( Isn't 1 Billion too round a number? hmmm...)

How are they allowed to get away with this you ask?

In our increasingly fictitious/fascist collusive Government/Media/Corporate environment, apparently being allowed to convert into a Bank holding company can allow you to skip a bad month if you choose to and you get a free pass from everybody including the media.

Why should the media shine a light to expose the truth yadda yadda yadda..... just give me my money and you can put my name next to the byline.

Out of more than 10 reports from mainstream financial media sources,

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=GS&t=2009-04-13T21:08:30

I've only noticed one glance over the "orphan" month of December 2008:

"Shifting the start of its fiscal year certainly helped the bank's overall results, said Denise Valentine, senior analyst at Aite Group, a Boston-based research firm.

"It's a little bit of fancy footwork, but for the market as a whole it's good news and it was needed," she said. "When your star does well or does what is expected, you breathe a little easier."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_goldman_sachs

"Fancy footwork" You say? or is your job on the line if you say what you really mean about Goldman Sachs' accounting trickery?

Not only is Goldman Sachs seemingly allowed to report fictitious "mark to market" results that can only be generously referred to as "mark to fantasy" based on relaxed financial reporting regulations, now they can also skip reporting whole months altogether.

What's next in this rigged game?

Queue generic CFO voice: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to announce record profits this quarter and every quarter into the foreseeable future now that we are allowed to spin off our losing months into separate entities according to TARP...Sorry, I meant PRAT(Profit Realization Accretion Transfer).

Voila, I've made our massive losses vanish into the SEC ether. Now hurry up and dilute the bagholders which allows us to pay the TARP back so I can get my damned bonus thanks to the PRAT act."


The quarterly reporting Emperor, apparently having no shame in addition to his lack of wardrobe, has decided to leave one of his sight for sore eyes limbs in the castle before venturing out into the open.

update: There is some reporting of the accounting loophole that caused Goldman to "smash" analysts estimates.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
by Dan Wilchins


"A RARE OPPORTUNITY

But Goldman's report was not all positive. The bank said its net loss for common shareholders was $1.03 billion in December, prompting some to question whether the change in financial years had allowed Goldman to dump much of its bad news into that one-off period and start afresh in the first quarter.

"December was a rare opportunity for both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley," said Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein. "A single month, without any comparisons that can be made with any other months, so none of us will ever know what goes into the month of December. It's one of those rare opportunities that CFOs dream about." Hintz is a former Lehman Brothers chief financial officer.

The bank said in January that it recorded a roughly $850 million loss from loans extended to units of chemicals company LyondellBasell in December, though the units filed for bankruptcy in January.

Between the December losses and the subsequent profit, Goldman's tangible book value per common share was essentially unchanged from the end of November, at $88.02, the bank said. Tangible common equity is a measure of the bank's net worth, ignoring intangible assets such as goodwill.

A measure of the bank's trading risk, average daily value-at-risk, surged to $240 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with $157 million for the three months ended February 28, 2008, implying that the bank took more trading risk."
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Goldman-beats-forecasts-to-rb-14915717.html

It is good to know that there are still some reporters like Dan Wilchins with enough backbone who are digging deeper but unfortunately for every one sentient report, there are 10 mindless company PR rehashes that drown them out.

The question to ask on the conference call in a couple of hours is how much they made in profit in their march 2009 quarter since it is taking place of their orphaned 1 Billion loss Dec 2008.

A safe estimate based on the frozen credit markets might imply that their Dec 2008 loss would have wiped out their profits from Jan and Feb of 2009 leaving them missing Analyst estimates by a country mile instead of crushing them.

But then again, we are not in the midst of a financial based economic collapse in spite of the accounting gimmicks of Wall Street firms but due primarily to the lax accounting standards that allow such chicanery to exist.

Another piece of irony is that Goldman made most of their profits using the same tactics of excessive leverage that have led to the horrendous tax payer money bailout of these bankers and it does not seem these bankers have learned any lessons about risk and leverage.

How long can they continue the same old same old while fleecing the public?

We shall see.