 |
||
| Jon Macaskill is one of the leading capital markets and derivatives journalists, with over 20 years’ experience covering financial markets from London and New York. Most recently he worked at one of the biggest global investment banks |
 |
|
The trading mishap should instead serve as a warning of how little the present global regulatory overhaul is likely to affect the behaviour of all the main dealers.
Goldman’s problems must be put in context. The firm certainly had a bad quarter by its own standard of almost constant outperformance of its peer group. Revenue from its main business line of trading and principal investments was down 39% from the second quarter of 2009 to $6.55 billion, a level that also marked a dip of 36% from the first quarter of 2010. Firm-wide profit was a disappointing $613 million after a charge of $600 million to cover the UK bank tax and $550 million to settle with the SEC over charges of CDO fraud.
But the relatively resilient net trading and principal revenues underscored the strength of the bank’s core franchise.
