Goldman released its trading records from the 3rd Quarter today, and it was impressive.
(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, reaped more than $100 million of trading revenue on 36 days in the third quarter, down from a record 46 in the preceding three months.
The firm’s trading division lost money on only one day during the quarter, down from two days in the second quarter, according to a quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. New York-based Goldman Sachs made at least $50 million on 53 of the 65 trading days in the period, or 82 percent of the time.
The statistical probability of losing money on only 1 out of 65 days goes a little beyond just skill.
The ISM for non-manufacturing index is out and is down from last month to 50.6%. That's a barely growing number. Anything below 50 is contracting. Employment, at 41.1% has been contracting for 21 out of 22 months now.
This quote tells you which industries are part of this index:
CNBC has an interesting news bit about something Volker said. First off, let me give kudos to AmericaBlog for first picking this up. In a meeting at the White House, the famed former Fed chairman basically said we need to rebalance the economy. That to have a GDP where over half (well 70% give or take) is due to consumption is not sustainable long term.
The alternatives to help bolster future economic growth include boosting exports, applying innovative technology to green issues and improving the nation's infrastructure, Volcker said.
The former Federal Reserve chairman, who now heads the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said Obama understands that "We cannot have so much consumption."
More will walk away, which will hamper the housing recovery, reinforce lenders' tight credit policies and drag on the economy's recovery, economists say.
"It's increasingly a more important factor driving the foreclosure crisis," says Mark Zandi, of Moody's Economy.com. "As we move forward, the job market will stabilize, and the big thing will be strategic defaults. People are going to determine it doesn't make financial sense to hold on to their homes. That's going to be a significant problem. Strategic defaults mean foreclosures could be high for a long time."
It's not just economists who are concerned about strategic defaults.
In New Jersey, it was all about corruption and property taxes.
In Virginia it's less clear. Jobs was the #1 issue but some of the comments imply voters are royally disgusted with the bank bail outs and also the spending without the results in jobs.
Perhaps most striking were economic views: A vast 89 percent in New Jersey and 85 percent in Virginia said they were worried about the direction of the nation's economy in the next year; 56 percent and 53 percent, respectively, said they were "very" worried about it.
The Senate and House are poised to agree on a compromise measure to extend unemployment benefits that also would expand a popular $8,000 tax credit for homebuyers, despite a recent government report on extensive mistakes and suspected fraud in the program.
Extensive mistakes? Suspected fraud? It's bad enough this is helping balloon the housing market bust. Congress is also changing the terms to be more broad:
On new orders, machinery had a blow out increase of +7.9% and durable goods orders were up +1.0% from August. In looking over the tables, it appears construction machinery was the driving force.
Inventories dropping to such an extent, yet such positive signs manufacturing is coming to life have to imply some hiring at some point in the near future.
Good news for manufacturing, but we have a long way to go. Last data I can locate, U.S. manufacturing is down to about 12.2% of total U.S. GDP. Obviously relying on the consumer to go shopping as an economic recovery plan isn't workin' out too well.
When the IMF announced the coming sale of 403 tonnes of its gold, after nearly a decade of threatening to do it, some expected China to purchase a little off-market. Almost no one expected India to make a major move.
The International Monetary Fund has sold 200 tonnes of gold to the Reserve Bank of India for $6,7 billion, quietly executing half of a long-planned bullion sale that has threatened to slow gold’s ascent.
The deal, which surprised traders who expected China to be the most likely buyer, will relieve the gold market of some uncertainty over how and when the IMF would sell 403,3 tonnes of gold, about one-eighth of its total stock. The deal will increase India’s gold holdings to the tenth largest among central banks.
And it shows that our children start off life at an severe disadvantage compared to children in other industrialized countries. If you don't believe that consider the conclusion of the study:
There are quite a bit of conflicting reports of a second stimulus in the works.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke was “imprecise” when he said President Barack Obama’s advisers are considering a second stimulus measure, his spokesman said today.
Locke, in an interview with Bloomberg Television, said: “If there is to be another stimulus -- and that’s being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress -- it needs to be very targeted, very specific and we need to be very mindful of the deficit as well.”
Kevin Griffis, a Commerce Department spokesman, said in a telephone interview after Locke spoke that the secretary was referring to “all the different job-creating measures being considered” by lawmakers rather than a single stimulus measure.
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