In the good old days, investment banks of the like of Lehman, closed their books at the end of November. They don’t longer exist. The survivors turned themselves in commercial banks, normally celebrating their year-end at 31st of December.
Now, this is funny: Goldman Sachs reported for the first quarter of 2009. From January till the end of March.
The question is: where went December?
From the FT:
Floyd Norris of the New York Times noted that Goldman Sachs used a more prosaic trick having nothing to do with mark to market accounting - the company moved its fiscal year up a month and simply left out its losses from December, which is now known as an ‘orphan month’. Is the rule that says a year has twelve months also open to subjective judgment?
Now, December is not completely missing.
Page 10 of the bank’s 2009 Q1 earnings statement is pretty clear. The net loss in December was £780m after writedowns including some $1bn on credit activities and $625m in commercial mortgage loans and securities (Footnote 19).
However, how would the first quarter profit have been if GS had included December?
Sure, everything you have to know is there, but did you knew?
Of course also JP Morgan is beating the analysts’ expectations.
And so will GE and Google, later this week.
Sphere: Related Content
Now, this is funny: Goldman Sachs reported for the first quarter of 2009. From January till the end of March.
The question is: where went December?
From the FT:
Floyd Norris of the New York Times noted that Goldman Sachs used a more prosaic trick having nothing to do with mark to market accounting - the company moved its fiscal year up a month and simply left out its losses from December, which is now known as an ‘orphan month’. Is the rule that says a year has twelve months also open to subjective judgment?
Now, December is not completely missing.
Page 10 of the bank’s 2009 Q1 earnings statement is pretty clear. The net loss in December was £780m after writedowns including some $1bn on credit activities and $625m in commercial mortgage loans and securities (Footnote 19).
However, how would the first quarter profit have been if GS had included December?
Sure, everything you have to know is there, but did you knew?
Of course also JP Morgan is beating the analysts’ expectations.
And so will GE and Google, later this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment