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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

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Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#51

Post by carlsborg »

jmeister wrote: post #9
rmrfstar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because GS has never been about having a "brain trust". It is about proximity to power. That peaked in 1998 when Time magazine ran the "Committee to Save the World" cover, featuring Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, and Alan Greenspan. To this day, people talk about that cover.

This is nonsense. GS has always had among the best talent on Wall St. In modeling and software they’ve been a step ahead of everyone else. An extreme example: Fisher Black, a Nobel winning economist, used to work there in the early 90s. And talent is not even the most distinguishing factor: it’s culture. Their culture is held to be the gold standard in corporate America, if you step outside the FANG bubble.

True, the culture at GS is/was by far the best.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#52

Post by koheripbal »

puranjay wrote: post #13
voldacar wrote: post #7

Fun fact: The CEO of Goldman also makes pretty bad EDM music https://soundcloud.com/djdsolmusic

Maybe it's because I'm an amateur musician and hear some truly awful music, but by EDM standards, that's at least mediocre, not "bad".

The only thing you're missing is the requirement to hate anything a banking CEO produces, no matter the quality.

He could cure cancer, and angry people online will complain he contributed to overpopulation.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#53

Post by carlsborg »

phyalow wrote: post #14
jmeister wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. GS has always had among the best talent on Wall St. In modeling and software they’ve been a step ahead of everyone else. An extreme example: Fisher Black, a Nobel winning economist, used to work there in the early 90s. And talent is not even the most distinguishing factor: it’s culture. Their culture is held to be the gold standard in corporate America, if you step outside the FANG bubble.

Cant say I agree. I worked for various European and US IB's pre 08, then have for the better part of the last decade been a client of them. IMO GS's culture has always struck me as a lot of self anointed hubris and resembles attitudes found on /r/iamverysmart, which when viewed from the outside it makes one laugh. All US IB's these days are largely just commodity balance sheets. None of them have any tangible edge ov…

If you didn’t work there you didn’t see how the machine works. It was genuinely world class: they’re pulling right from the top to make you the best you can be, and the best get rewarded.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#54

Post by arcticbull »

drawkbox wrote: post #3
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Speaking somewhat anecdotally, Goldman Sachs in 2020 does not resemble Goldman circa 1998 or even 2008. A lot of brain trust was lost following the post-crisis de-risking and vilification. The move into retail finance, to me, solidifies its mystique shedding.

> move into retail finance Whistleblower: Wall Street Has Engaged in Widespread Manipulation of Mortgage Funds [1]. Commercial real-estate was already going to absolutely hammered. > Some of the world’s biggest banks — including Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank — as well as other lenders have engaged in a systematic fraud that allowed them to award borrowers bigger loans than were supported by their true financials, acc…

So this was a solved problem with the Glass–Steagall Act (1933) brought in after the, you guessed it, great depression [1]. It was of course repealed (by Bill Clinton), as we'd learned our lesson thoroughly and completely. This led to 2008. And 2020.

So naturally, given the broad-based success of the repeal, there's no interest in reviving it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_legislation

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#55

Post by superhuzza »

carlsborg wrote: post #53
phyalow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cant say I agree. I worked for various European and US IB's pre 08, then have for the better part of the last decade been a client of them. IMO GS's culture has always struck me as a lot of self anointed hubris and resembles attitudes found on /r/iamverysmart, which when viewed from the outside it makes one laugh. All US IB's these days are largely just commodity balance sheets. None of them have any tangible edge ov…

If you didn’t work there you didn’t see how the machine works. It was genuinely world class: they’re pulling right from the top to make you the best you can be, and the best get rewarded.

Totally anecdotal:

I know a few people (5-7?) from both high school and undergrad who went to work at Goldman Sachs. 2 in NYC, at least one in both of London and HK. All of them were pretty middle of the road in terms of academic achievement, smarts, leadership etc. The smartest people I know from back then are mostly working at NGOs or academia.

The one thing that all the GS people had in common is that they cared a lot about having a high salary. The kind of guys who like to buy expensive champagne at the club, is embarrassed if they don't make it to Bali for spring break. That kind of thing. Absolutely no moral judgement on my part, this is just what I noticed.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#56

Post by mxschumacher »

rcpt wrote: post #47
mxschumacher wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because he didn't predict a global pandemic and a government ban on flying? Selling at a loss is hard, Kudos to Berkshire for understanding that the world has changed and acting accordingly, most investors are going to try to sit this out and might well lose everything in the process.

Why couldn't he predict it in February?

If you know more than people managing hundreds of billions of dollars, you should consider getting into finance. Shorting the market before February 19th 2020 was quite brilliant.

I suppose that few people predicted that this crisis would hit America so hard

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#57

Post by dredmorbius »

markus_zhang wrote: post #28
rmrfstar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because GS has never been about having a "brain trust". It is about proximity to power. That peaked in 1998 when Time magazine ran the "Committee to Save the World" cover, featuring Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, and Alan Greenspan. To this day, people talk about that cover.

But finance is always about connections, said Michele Sindona.

Context?

Michele Sindona (Italian: [miˈkɛːle sinˈdoːna]; May 8, 1920 – March 22, 1986) was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due (#0501),[1] a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connections to the Sicilian Mafia. He was fatally poisoned in prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Sindona

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#58

Post by drumhead »

Slartie wrote: post #22
blackrock wrote: post #16

What does he know that we don’t? He just dumped most of his airline holdings, after losing some $5 billion dollars. It seems he might be going into cash, and sitting things out, until a true correction hits, and then he’ll go back in and pick up companies for pennies on the dollar.

He lost a huge pile on Kraft Heinz, and that was pre-Corona. Didn't yet realize those losses AFAIK. He lost a pile on the airlines and even decided to realize those losses. He lost a pile on that petroleum company that I forgot the name of, but which crashed and burned recently due to oil prices plunging. He hesitated a long time with tech stocks and lost a lot of money in the last decade due to opportunity cost. His…

No, I dont think he's overated at all. See the article linked. https://www.barrons.com/articles/berkshire-hathaways-investi...

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#59

Post by voldacar »

puranjay wrote: post #13
voldacar wrote: post #7

Fun fact: The CEO of Goldman also makes pretty bad EDM music https://soundcloud.com/djdsolmusic

Maybe it's because I'm an amateur musician and hear some truly awful music, but by EDM standards, that's at least mediocre, not "bad".

Well by bad I meant flavorless, generic, forgettable, so maybe mediocre would be the better term :)

Re: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of Goldman Sachs stake

#60

Post by valuearb »

carlsborg wrote: post #51
jmeister wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. GS has always had among the best talent on Wall St. In modeling and software they’ve been a step ahead of everyone else. An extreme example: Fisher Black, a Nobel winning economist, used to work there in the early 90s. And talent is not even the most distinguishing factor: it’s culture. Their culture is held to be the gold standard in corporate America, if you step outside the FANG bubble.

True, the culture at GS is/was by far the best.

Did you mean to type “most corrupt” instead?
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