Goldman loses money on just one trading day in Q3.

Quote from plan:

so why not jump on the bandwagon and buy GS.

I would prefer a hostile take over of GS and thereafter splitting their business units and preparing them for separate IPO´s....:D :D :D
 
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

Huh? So if the odds of a baseball player making $25mil in a year is 1 in 100 million I'd deduce A-Rod is "cheating" because he's made 20mil 10 consecutive years?

Or if a local in the bond pit goes several months in a row without a losing day he must be stealing?

The article makes some asinine statistical errors. If a dealer has an edge than his odds of making money are not 50% but rather higher. And if one has infinite flow than his odds are extremely favorable.
In other words if you have a 55/45 edge per trade but make just 1 trade a day than we'd expect you to make money 55% of sampled trading days. What if you have a 55/45 edge but make 10,000 trades a day? We'd then expect you'd make money virtually every day, eh?

So then answer me. How many losing days does Oanda have? Or Harrah's? Or a disciplined floor trader?

Comparing the profitability of a speculator or a gambler to a market maker or a casino is akin to comparing a 16 inch softball player to Albert Pujols. Other than everyone is swing a bat not much commonality....

Your baseball player salary example makes no sense in this context. Neither does comparing Harrah's to Goldman Sachs.

There is no question that GS has an "edge". Having an edge is fine; inevitable even. But when that edge becomes so great that YOU NEVER LOSE, one would have to conclude some form of corruption. Especially given the fact that there are laws and regulations in place supposedly to limit this type of statistical "edge".
 
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

I see nothing in the article referring to the data on a trade by trade basis.

the firm's Equities Commissions revenue for the quarter dropped to $930 million from $1.2 billion YoY, while prop Equities Trading skyrocketed from $354 million to $1.8 billion YoY! And just in case you were wondering someone, somewhere was motivated to destroy Fixed Income powerhouse Lehman and Bear, look no further than Goldman's Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities which did a gentle jump from $1.6 billion in Q3 2008 to $6 billion last quarter.

the charts are labeled "Summary of Trading Performance"

Am I missing something?

Oanda is a market maker - that is to say that any trade I place with Oanda does not go out into the currency world. It sits on Oanda's system. They hedge net exposure on the currency market. I'm sure if we look at how much money Oanda makes, it would show similar stats. But if we look at how much money their "TRADING" did, we would not.
 
GS is the house, and the house always wins.

Though Vegas casinos have gone out of business without being backstopped by the gov't, so there is that difference.
 
Quote from krazykarl:

Show me this documentation that is so public. Links please showing those were the [only]people he talked to daily. You also forgot Bernanke, which he should have been talking to daily. You've just demonstrated how FUD gets started.

You seem to have far more time on your hands than I do, search for it, its not that hard. Lewis complained about this relationship BoA did not enjoy.
 
Quote from Kassz007:

There is no need to draw a definitive line. If I told you I won the lottery 1 time you'd say "you sure are lucky". If I told you I won the lottery 5 times you'd say "you sure are lucky, something smells rather fishy here". If I told you I won the lottery 9 times out of 10, you'd say "that's not possible - you cheated somehow".

The problem is that the lottery is 100% gambling. You can easily scale in and out of a swing trade for profits the majority of the time. Getting $0.30 on T is not even close to the same as getting 6 numbers in a drawing with a drum of numbered balls.
 
Quote from Mvic:

You seem to have far more time on your hands than I do, search for it, its not that hard. Lewis complained about this relationship BoA did not enjoy.

Link to Lewis complaining about his competition doing better then he did. Oh wait, GS didn't make sub-prime loans, they just traded the derivatives. =) It's not that I have time on my hands, it's that I know where to quickly get this info because it's all been in the news recently.(past 5 years)
 

I have to admit that I have not yet looked at your link but, have you had a position stopped out 6 points below what was market by a second ago by a 15,000 contract market sell order, then an immediate buy after the stops were popped only to see the market resume it's direction upwards? Now who trades in ES blocks that size????

1. Are you seriously comparing the legit money that could be made on market making activities 30 years ago, when the spreads were greater and before decimalization to TODAY?

2. Goldman has been at this, like this a long long time. Go read about their activities before, during and after the stock market crash of 29. There is not any evidence that they just started this crap, just that they are now subsidized to do it in a much bigger way today.
 
Quote from krazykarl:

Link to Lewis complaining about his competition doing better then he did. Oh wait, GS didn't make sub-prime loans, they just traded the derivatives. =) It's not that I have time on my hands, it's that I know where to quickly get this info because it's all been in the news recently.(past 5 years)

He was complaining about not enjoying the same access to Geithner that the CEO of other banks did. Surprisingly those other banks seemed to do just a little better than everyone else on the street. No doubt an innocent coincidence.

By the way, have any interest in some prime Florida real estate KK? I can hook you up :)
 
Quote from truehawk:

I have to admit that I have not yet looked at your link but, have you had a position stopped out 6 points below what was market by a second ago by a 15,000 contract market sell order, then an immediate buy after the stops were popped only to see the market resume it's direction upwards? Now who trades in ES blocks that size????

1. Are you seriously comparing the legit money that could be made on market making activities 30 years ago, when the spreads were greater and before decimalization to TODAY?

2. Goldman has been at this, like this a long long time. Go read about their activities before, during and after the stock market crash of 29. There is not any evidence that they just started this crap, just that they are now subsidized to do it in a much bigger way today.

I'm not disputing anything you stated - of course there is a disconnect between large players and the retail guys. My underlying point is that retail can still make tons of money and that trading styles need to take the manipulation into account. Don't want to get stopped out? Don't use stops with your broker. I don't use stops at all because of the spikes on the ECNs that will trigger them. If I want an automated stop I put it in my code and add conditions; one I use is for the stop to be triggered there needs to be x number of prints greater than a particular lot size.

Not all market rules are printed in a handbook or SEC regulations; more than ever they cost tuition to learn.
 
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