Wall Street Reform Could Cost Goldman Sachs BILLIONS
by ilene - June 19th, 2010 11:25 am
Wall Street Reform Could Cost Goldman Sachs BILLIONS
Courtesy of Ryan Grim and Shahien Nasiripour at The Huffington Post
The proposed financial reforms pending before Congress could cost Goldman Sachs nearly a quarter of its annual profits, Citigroup analysts estimate in a new report.
Goldman, the most profitable securities firm on Wall Street, could lose up to $5.06 in earnings on a per-share basis if Congress passes a bill that forbids banks from trading for their own profit, owning or sponsoring hedge funds and private equity funds, and compelling them to move most of their derivatives dealing into regulated markets, according to the research note.
Combined with a potential fee to recoup taxpayer losses on TARP and higher deposit insurance assessments on its bank, Goldman could lose up to 23 percent of its profits, giving it the distinction of being the firm most impacted by the financial reform legislation.
Morgan Stanley is a close second as the team of Citi analysts, led by Keith Horowitz, estimate that it could lose up to 20 percent of its profits. Up to 18 percent of JPMorgan Chase’s profits are at risk, while Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank by assets, could see up to 16 percent of its profits evaporate.
The so-called "Volcker Rules," which would ban banks from putting their own capital at risk in hedge funds, private equity firms and through proprietary trades, and limit the growth of the largest ones, could shave four percent off the banks’ bottom lines, the Citi analysts estimate. Tighter restrictions on prop trading, which come in the form of a provision pushed by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, could cost the big banks five percent of their profits.
Combined with the various other aspects of the pending legislation — like compelling banks to hold better-quality capital, making the biggest ones pay more for deposit insurance and robust regulation of heretofore unregulated derivatives — and the nation’s biggest banks could collectively lose up to 11 percent of their annual profits, the Citi analysts estimate in their Wednesday report. Goldman, Morgan, JPMorgan and Bank of America would be the most impacted.
"[O]ne of the biggest areas of risk for the group is tougher trading rules via [a] narrow definition of what constitutes banned proprietary activity," the authors noted. They were also careful to note that while their estimates required…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.