Archives of “goldman sachs” tag

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Goldman Sachs is worried about the prospects for ‘mega cap tech’ stocks – 3 big risks

  
  Analysis
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Via a Goldman Sachs analyst research note ICYMI (on Friday) covering huge technology shares like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google).

GS nominate risk #1 as higher taxes, commenting on plans from the Biden administration for higher corporate and capital gains tax rates:
  • proposed corporate tax rate hiked to 28% (note that Biden has indicated a 25% compromise rate)
  • “FAAMG stocks have appreciated by $5 trillion during the last 5 years, accounting for 29% of the S&P 500 market cap increase during that time” … and thus a drop in these stocks will have an outsized impact on index values
#2 is the ‘higher interest rates’ usual suspect:
  • low rates have been a key support for valuations for over ten years now
  • the time of near zero rates could be approaching an end though
  • “All five FAAMG stocks …  are especially sensitive to moves in long-term interest rates“
#3 is increased regulation … GS go as far as to say “Looking forward, the greatest fundamental risk to the continued market leadership of the five largest companies appears to be the potential intervention of regulators
  • … legal battles and investigations over their market power and competitive practices ranging from commercial litigation to DoJ and FTC antitrust lawsuits to Congressional probes”
GS do note on #3 though that Google has soared since the launch of the DOJ investigation (in October 2020 … price from circa $105 to circa $135).
Via a Goldman Sachs analyst research note ICYMI (on Friday) covering huge technology shares like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google).

Goldman Sachs analyst on downside risk for US equities

  
  Analysis
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Goldman Sachs’s chief equity strategist, David Kostin spoke Tuesday with CNBC

  • “There’s a little bit of asymmetry in terms of the downside risk toward a level in the S&P 500 of around 2,000, which is down almost 25%, and upside of around 10% to a target at the end of the year of 3,000”
Unpicking/deciphering that – he thinks lower is more likely.
More:
  • important investors not get too keen to buy
  • during the 2008 financial crisis the market took several months of violent moves up and down before ultimately putting in a lasting bottoming on March 9, 2009
  • “I would just remind you that in 2008 in the fourth quarter there were many different rallies…but the market did not bottom until March of 2009” 

Friday will bring nonfarm payroll data from the US – Goldman Sachs preview

  
  Analysis
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Goldman Sachs were very close to the money indeed for jobless claims.

I posted yesterday:
  • US Jobless claims data due Thursday – Goldman Sachs forecasts 5.25m
And then, prior to the data they boosted their forecast:
  • Goldman Sachs raises US weekly initial jobless claims forecast to 6 million, from 5.25 million previously
Note that this NFP report is unlikely to be instructive, the survey was mainly before the big impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy. Over to GS’ comments:
  • estimate for nonfarm payrolls is a decline of 180k in March
  • unemployment rate up 0.3 to 3.8% … risks skewed towards a larger increase
  • the March employment numbers are already fairly stale and insignificant in our view, because the April report will likely show job losses in the millions.
Goldman Sachs were very close to the money indeed for jobless claims.

Week ahead: US earnings, South Africa rates, EC president vote

  
  Analysis
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No summer hours here. Investors are bracing for a busy week as earnings season gets under way in America, in Europe parliament votes for a new president for the European Commission and on both sides of the Atlantic, investors face a deluge of economic data. Here’s what to watch in the coming days. US earnings Banks unofficially kick off second-quarter earnings season on Monday and investors will be tuning in to see whether corporate America is headed for its first earnings recession since 2016. Citigroup starts the earnings party on Monday and JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo follow suit on Tuesday. Prospects of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve are unnerving investors that are watching to see if this could squeeze banks’ profit margins. My colleague Rob Armstrong has more in his excellent bank earnings curtain raiser. I

in all, nearly 60 companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report results including the big banks, Netflix, Microsoft, Schlumberger and Johnson & Johnson. US data Markets have largely pencilled in a cut by the Fed at its monetary policy meeting this month, though investors continue to debate how many cuts the central bank may push through this year and how deep the cuts will be. To get a better picture of the US economy and clues to Fed policymakers’ thinking, investors will closely parse a string of economic data for updates on consumer and industrial health. Americans are expected to have tightened their purse strings a little last month with headline retail sales expected to rise 0.2 per cent month-on-month, following a stronger 0.5 per cent increase in May. Control sales, which strip out volatile items like food, energy and building materials, are expected to rise 0.3 per cent. Investors will also tune into consumer sentiment data later in the week. Updates on the industrial sector come via regional manufacturing surveys as well as industrial production data, which is expected to show factory output cooled. The economic calendar also includes updates on the housing market. UK data

The economic calendar across the pond also promises to be busy with jobs data, inflation and retail sales on the docket. As markets consider the possibility of a rate cut by the Bank of England, “next week’s raft of UK data are likely to give ammunition to both sides of the argument,” noted economists at ING. While wages are expected to tick back up, they said “the high street isn’t feeling the benefit of this modest improvement in real wage growth”. However, they added: “With Brexit noise only likely to increase over the coming months, and a risk that trade tensions could worsen, we think the Bank of England will keep rates on hold for the rest of the year.”

EU Commission president On Tuesday the European Parliament votes on the next EU Commission president. Ursula von der Leyen has promised parliament a bigger say in Brussels’ decision-making as she seeks MEPs for the top post in Brussels for the next five years. “A successful vote will be largely ignored by markets, but a failure to garner enough support (which is still a possibility) could blow up the entire deal that the Council reached earlier this month, though we do think that Ms [Christine] Lagarde’s ECB nomination will be safe either way,” said strategists at TD Securities. South Africa rates On Thursday attention shifts to South Africa, where the reserve bank is widely expected to announce a 25 basis point cut to the repo rate, putting it at 6.5 per cent. Since the last SARB meeting in May, the monetary policy committee has undergone a massive transition. Strategists at TD Securities “think the message will be moderately dovish, suggesting potentially more easing,” and expect “slightly positive” reaction in the rand as they argue markets have “priced for more easing than we expect”.

Goldman Sachs says the yen is undervalued – downside risk to 103 target

  
Analysis, Forex
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Via a Goldman Sachs note, says yen remains cheap, unlike many other safe havens

  • positive news out of the US-China meeting could weigh on yen in the near term
  • but its role as a portfolio hedge bodes will continue
Downside risks to GS’ 12-month USD/JPY target (at 103)
  • proprietary models set 95 as fair value
  • bullish yen view supported by BOJ having limited monetary policy space to ease further
  • net outflows from Japan have shifted to “cross-border direct investment from portfolio flows, and outbound foreign direct investment could pull back on global trade uncertainty”
More:
  • trade disputes
  • unsettled global markets
may lead to a choppy USD

High-frequency trading: when milliseconds mean millions

  
  Education
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Asked to imagine what a Wall Street share-dealing room looks like and the layman will describe a testosterone-fuelled bear pit crammed full of alpha males in brightly coloured jackets, frantically shouting out bid and offer prices.

He couldn’t be more wrong. Technological advances mean that stocks are now traded digitally on computer servers in often anonymous – but heavily guarded – buildings, generally miles away from the historic epicentres of finance, meaning the brash men in sharp suits depicted in films such as the The Wolf of Wall Street have been dethroned as the kings of finance.
Computer programmers have taken their crown thanks to the code they churn out, which is able to execute trades thousands of times faster than any human. (more…)

Federal prosecutors leading criminal investigation into Goldman Sachs

  
Analysis, Economy, Education, US Market
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Some breaking news on the WSJ. Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into whether GS or employees committed securities fraud. This is more serious than the fairly toothless senate committee.

Updated at 6:08/30th April/Baroda

EU sues Goldman over volcanic ash

  
  Education
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European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced late Sunday that the European Union has filed suit against investment banking giant Goldman Sachs for the fallout of ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano.  The volcanic ash, which has blanketed the skies over most of Europe for the last four days, has grounded almost all European air traffic, stranding travelers and disrupting economic activity throughout the European Union.

In a statement delivered in Romansh, the official EU language of the month, Barroso said, “We have uncovered evidence that this so-called ‘natural disaster’, which is costing the EU hundreds of millions of Euros, is in fact an Act of Goldman, and we intend to hold the Zionist-American cabal in charge of the firm accountable.”  “First the profligate Americans drag the world into a near-depression and now they crap all this ash on us.  Who the hell do they think they are?” added Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou from Athens, where he was chairing a conference on Greek sovereign debt entitled, “How American Speculators Forced Us to Cook the Books, Lie to Our European Partners, and Pretend We Don’t Need A Massive Bailout”.

The EU complaint alleges that Goldman operated a proprietary wind-blowing strategy to direct the volcano’s ash into Europe’s stratosphere.  Goldman is accused of profiting from the fallout by buying complex Flight Cancellation Swaps that are netting Goldman millions of dollars every time another European flight is cancelled.  The complaint cites a smoking gun email from Francois Tubbey, a 16-year old Goldman vice president, to an unidentified woman at “i@&$*[email protected]” stating, “That’s right, baby, Fat Franky’s in charge of the weather.”

Several European banks who are counterparties to the FCS’s are alleged to be suffering billions in losses with no end in sight, apparently because they continue to sell the FCS’s to Goldman.  Reached for comment, the Chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the counterparty banks, said, “Yes, we know almost all European flights are cancelled, but our advisor is Goldman Sachs, and they keep urging us to sell these FCS’s to them, so we do.  We intend to hold them fully responsible.”

Goldman issued a statement saying that it intends to “vigorously defend itself,” adding that the EU’s charges are “unfounded in meteorology and probably also in fact.”

In a related development, the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change said today it is considering investigating Goldman’s role in climate change.  “We’re going to get the documents, proceed cautiously, and determine precisely when Goldman started melting the Polar icecaps.” [via email]

A look inside the Wall Street/DC money machine.

  
  Education
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A memo sent out to vice-presidents and higher-level employees at Barclays Capital provides a rare glimpse into how Wall Street flexes its political muscles around election times.

While Wall Street has traditionally been regarded as a bastion of free-market Republicanism, this impression has largely been disproved in recent years. Wall Street invested far more in Democratic candidates and campaigns in the 2008 election cycle, when Barack Obama was elected president.

Goldman Sachs [GS  169.20    -1.87  (-1.09%)   ], for instance, saw 75 percent of its donations go to the Democratic political machinery in 2008. And in this cycle, the latest figures available show 54 percent of Wall Street contributions going to Democrats. The political action committee money is even more skewed toward Democrats, with 57 percent hitting in that direction. (Those numbers don’t include the third-quarter contributions, which may have balanced out the numbers a bit.) (more…)

How Does Goldman Sachs Make Its Profits?

  
Analysis, Education
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During the 2nd quarter of 2009, Goldman Sachs made more than $100 million in trading income in each of a record straight 46 days, with only two losing days out of 65.  That’s a remarkable hit rate of nearly 97%.

Maybe that’s why Goldman gets to do “God’s work”!

How do Goldman do it? 

How does Goldman make its profits?


 

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