No, all the major banks are linked to the Fed if not directly then by proxy via one of the member banks. I think you're nuts alluding to an Elvis-is-still-alive/Alien conspiracy.
A better question is how does it compare with Goldman's historical performance? Answer: not much different from 3 decades ago. When you hire the top 1% of the top 1% of schools' graduating classes you tend to do better than most.
ZeroHedge followup analysis on the original article: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/an...ng-perfection-and-statistical-improbabilities When a firm's trading performance challenges not only all preconceptions of realistic trading, but also of statistical distributions, one can merely stand back and watch in awe. Attached is a graphic of what a rigged, backstopped and manipulated market is all about. The chart demonstrates Goldman's YTD trading track record: out of 194 trading days in 2009, the firm has made over $100 million on 116 occasions! This alone accounts for $11.6 billion in revenue (and is likely much more as Goldman could have easily had a $1 billion trading day in the rightmost bracket as it is open ended). Assuming midline averages for any given bucket and multiplying by the amount of days that the firm traded within these, Goldman Sachs has made $15 billion courtesy of the skewed and very highly improbable (but not impossible, thank you taxpayers and Ben Bernanke) chart. (charts on site)
First, you're quoting a post from ZH - ZH! ZH is taken about as seriously as the Weekly World News is. It's a tabloid full of rants and half-facts. Next week there will be a blog post on there about Dimon's love-child with bigfoot that looks amazingly like Blankfein. Second, the post you quoted is talking about rewriting stats 101 - based on a bloody quarter of performance? wtf? Read that paragraph you quoted aloud. How could you have taken that banter seriously?
They have almost 1 trillion dollars under management and have hired the top graduates from the top schools over the past 50 years. Why should they not be making returns trading like that??? Why would the supposed best firm not act as such? You guys are making this way too complicated. The Yankees have a ton of championships for the same reason: they stack their roster with the best players, paid for with proceeds from previous wins. If a monkey had almost a trillion to trade with I would expect the monkey to make at least a few mil, law of averages. Use people slightly better than monkeys and I expect better performance.
As if Havard and MIT teach their MBAs some secret to making money at trading, which can only be done at Goldman. Also, historically, it hasn't been the best and the brightest went to wall street, they were rocket scientists, entrepreneurs and other worth while occupations. 5yr
Let me rephrase: the best and brightest that were going to wall st went to GS. i don't want to get off track as we're talking about IBs and trading. Other firms make tons of good money too. Bear made a ton in the 80s and 90s. A TON! (I agree though that more of those that recently went to Wall St. should go to other industries, like aerospace, biological engineering, medicine, etc.)
But even the yankees lose 80% of the time, as in not winning the world series. There is no way someone could make money almost everyday unless the market is rigged in their favor. 5yr