'Perfect Quarter' for four Wall Street banks

What are the odds of batting 1,000 when you gamble? Is it even possible?
It is when you are "the house". That's the only way it can happen.

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the first, second and fifth-biggest U.S. banks by assets, all said in regulatory filings that they had zero days of trading losses in the first quarter. Citigroup Inc., the third-largest, doesn’t break out its daily trading revenue by quarter. It recorded a profit on each trading day, two people with knowledge of the results said.
“The trading profits of the Street is just another way of measuring the subsidy the Fed is giving to the banks,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California- based Institutional Risk Analytics. “It’s a transfer from savers to banks.”
The trading results, which helped the banks report higher quarterly profit than analysts estimated even as unemployment stagnated at a 27-year high, came with a big assist from the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank helped lenders by holding short-term borrowing costs near zero, giving them a chance to profit by carrying even 10-year government notes that yielded an average of 3.70 percent last quarter.

Would you gamble in a rigged casino? That's what people are doing when they put money into their 401k.

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what are the odds?

two of them had zero losses on trades for 3 months. What a joke!

Not two. Four!

Four Wall Street banks had zero losses in three months of trading.
The odds against that in an actual free market are astronomical. Good thing for Wall Street we don't have an actual free market.

Remember that these are the same guys the taxpayer had to bailout.

It stinks to high heaven

Not only is that impossible by the odds, to not have a single losing trade out of how many in a quarter? 100k? But the profits are off the charts too and I'll bet that's the zero interest rate spread.

Meanwhile we're seeing a host of articles today about the "new poor" talking about the additional new steps down the economic ladder Americans have taken and how they are permanent.

Proof positive that the

Proof positive that the system is fixed. These huge banks/traders (I will NOT call GS a "bank" because that would be a lie) are simply extensions of the fascist US government - or maybe its the other way around - the fascist US government is an extension of these banks/traders.

I Have to Ask

How can I get these guys to handle my IRA? Since the Fed is bankrolling them, I'd like a chance to get my retirement back to where it was before the crash. It's the least they can do.

Frank T.

Banks are extensions of U.S. government

More evidence these huge banks are simply extensions of the U.S. government.

In return for U.S. government bailouts and guarantees, banks work with the Treasury in an attempt to "manage" the markets.


"I would –as you have suggested – wash the order thru liquidity loans to my 1 or 2 firms; with the understanding that they would buy equities that they would then deposit as collateral for such loans."


Insights From An Ex-Wall Street CEO On Market Manipulation

This explains why the most obvious of all financial reforms, re-instate Glass-Steagall, is mysteriously not being supported by Obama. For if it were re-instated, the banks could no longer buy stocks. And if the banks could not buy stocks, then they couldn't implement U.S. Treasury financial engineering - supporting stock market prices.

This also explains why the Federal Reserve must maintain secrecy. For they are the go-between for the U.S. Treasury and large banks. Without this secrecy an audit would show the money trail.

So it all ties together. Bailouts. Banks having "perfect" quarters. No Glass-Steagall. Federal Reserve secrecy. It's all part of a charade to keep our sickly, debt-addicted, economy afloat - and thus keep the status quo for those in power.

Law Enforcement Works For Them Not Us

In California stealing golf clubs as a third offense returned a 25 to life sentence.

Stealing billions from investors is applauded and responded with huge bonus's.

The media will never touch this subject with a ten foot pole.

There will be some charges filed on edge characters - fall guys but no corps will be charged criminally - no CEO's will be charged criminally. Sure they take the credit for success with huge payouts but the blame is never theirs.

These are the 'see we are doing something' actions. The perfunctory actions of law enforcement to show the average Joe they are being protected but in reality these actions are just part of the ongoing program just as the 'reforms' we'll soon see.

All part of the show.

How Goldman batted 1,000

It's a lot easier to steal from people when they trust you.

Seven of the investment bank’s nine “recommended top trades for 2010” have been money losers for investors who adopted the New York-based firm’s advice, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from a Goldman Sachs research note sent yesterday. Clients who used the tips lost 14 percent buying the Polish zloty versus the Japanese yen, 9.4 percent buying Chinese stocks in Hong Kong and 9.8 percent trading the British pound against the New Zealand dollar.
...
Cohn told investors at a May 11 conference in New York that the firm lost money on only 11 days in the last 12 months. He said that uncanny streak of success refutes suspicions that the bank depends on proprietary bets with its own money.
“It is implausible that a proprietary-driven business model could be right 96 percent of the time,” Cohn said. Instead, he said the “simple answer” is that the firm makes money by capturing bid-offer spreads when acting as an intermediary for client trades.

bring back the Italian Mafia!

Jesus, I think their loans had better terms, the consequences about the same.

I'm glad to see more digging into this story. Statistically, there is no way in hell all of these companies could have "perfect trades" without some serious rigging.

So, now the question is on these losing recommended trades, did GS bet against them and thus win?