Goldman Sachs Client Trade Recommendations

[kevsta]

Goldman Sachs (allegedly) have a long history of milking their "muppets" - its an in joke in certain circles that many, it certainly seems like "most" public client trade recommendations are losers, for the clients that is, as the GS prop desk is selling what the clients are buying.

ZH highlight almost every GS trade recommendation from their sell-side, and the follow up results, so I thought a thread would be interesting to track success rates over time.

Today's (29-06) trade, long Spanish, Italian & Irish bonds. no really.

We recommend being long an equally-weighted basket of benchmark 5-year Spanish, Irish and Italian government bonds, currently yielding 5.9% on average, for a target of 4.5% and tight stop loss on a close at 6.5%

the star player in their muppet-milking team is Thomas Stolper, who has become so famed that his name (like Corzine and "..gone.." ) is now used to describe trades that fairly quickly, if not immediately run against you and stop you or you bail out.

usage: "Dude, I got Stolpered good and proper"

last year, at one point his batting average was 10 wrong, 1 right out of the past 11. I don't know what it is now, but he still has a job, he even set a record for the fastest ever last week.

21-06-2012

We opened on Monday a long NZD/$ recommendation, partly on the basis that the Fed would ease monetary policy today with additional non-conventional measures. At the same time we pointed out that New Zealand’s economy looks relatively well protected against cyclical weakness. During the week both hypotheses were confirmed with much stronger GDP data in New Zealand than expected and the extension of “Operation Twist” by the Fed.

At the same time, however, long NZD/$ exposure is also strongly correlated with overall risk sentiment. The continued weakness in US macro data, as illustrated by today’s Philly Fed index and deteriorating political news flow from the Eurozone, led to a sharp deterioration in broader risk sentiment.

With much of the macro rationale for the recommendation now past and in line with our short SPX recommendation earlier today, we cut long NZD/$ exposure for a small potential loss of 0.7%.

Stolper. FTMFW.

 

[Francesca R]

I don't know anyone who gets this stuff (which includes me) ever following trade recommendations. BTW the one about Spanish/Italian bonds is authored by Francesco Garzarelli and Silvia Ardagna.

Looks like zerohedge have driven a coach and horses through the T&C of GS's research site by reproducing the whole note though. If they've been doing that for a while, obviously nobody's bothered.

 

[kevsta]

I don't know anyone who gets this stuff (which includes me) ever following trade recommendations. BTW the one about Spanish/Italian bonds is authored by Francesco Garzarelli and Silvia Ardagna.

Looks like zerohedge have driven a coach and horses through the T&C of GS's research site by reproducing the whole note though. If they've been doing that for a while, obviously nobody's bothered.

I thought they get emails and reproduce them? if it was from a site I expect there would have been some copyright lawsuits already, whereas if you mail something out, its pretty much public domain.

I could be mistaken, but yes they've been doing it forever.

you're not a "client" of theirs are you?

 

[Francesca R]

I wouldn't have access to their stuff otherwise. Pretty sure the e-mails come with the same T&C but I don't subscribe to them.

 

[kevsta]

Insolvent REIT in Pennsylvania

as its gone a bit quiet on the GS update front, although I cannot imagine this

being long an equally-weighted basket of benchmark 5-year Spanish, Irish and Italian government bonds, currently yielding 5.9% on average, for a target of 4.5% and tight stop loss on a close at 6.5%."

is going all that well, here's an interesting one.

Reggie Middleton contends that much of the US F.I.R.E sector is insolvent, or will become so. He's gone public with a subscriber short recommendation, anybody from Pennsylvania here? who is PEI?

so Daenku, here's your opportunity, go all-in long on this one, I dare you