Quote from Maverick74:
Lights calm down man. No more coffee this morning for you. Look, I really think you do not understand how this business works. Ok, those numbers you are throwing at me, I know how guys on ET like to get a hard on when they hear them but the truth is, those numbers are really rather bland. When you look at their actual return on capital, they are making fractions of a percent a day. Probably half a percent, maybe a quarter. I know a lot of guys that consistently make a 1/4 to 1/2 a percent a day.
The only difference is size. These banks have billions to work with. The numbers are not as sexy as the media makes them out to be. Yes, they are consistent. But that consistency really is analogous to an option premium seller which is synthetically what their p&l profile looks like. Very small consistent profits when markets are slow and calm followed by huge drawdowns when volatility explodes. There is nothing really new here. I still don't know what your gripe is.
You left out the bailout for these large institutions, ie socialized losses. None of this is new information, the problem with human beings is that our hindsight is perfect, should LEH with all its flaws have been bailed as opposed to GS or Bear, that really gets to the heart of it; politics trumps money at a certain point but they are so close its hard to tell them apart.
