“Last Tuesday, the day before Apple released its holiday quarter earnings and two days before the company lost $60 billion in market value, Goldman Sachs sold $30 million worth of so-called structured bonds tied to the performance of Apple’s stock, SEC filings show,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“At the time of the sale, Bill Shope, Goldman’s Apple equities specialist, was predicting that the company’s shares would climb to $760 within 12 months,” P.E.D. reports.The day after the earnings report, he lowered his Apple price target to $600. The bonds Goldman sold, a complicated form of bank debt, convert to Apple stock if the company’s shares fall below a pre-set strike price.”
P.E.D. reports, “This would not be the first time Goldman Sachs made money betting against its clients.”
Read more in the full article here.
Kevin Dugan reports for Bloomberg News, “The notes are Goldman Sachs’s largest offering tied to the company since Feb. 24, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Structured notes, which are bank debt packaged with derivatives, allow individual investors to take bets on everything from the price of gold to movements in stock volatility. Tiffany Galvin, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment on the offering.”
“Last year, investors bought $1.75 billion of structured notes tied to Apple, making it the second-most popular reference measure after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, Bloomberg data show,” Dugan reports. “Notes linked to Apple surpassed those tied to the London interbank offered rate for the first time since at least 2010, when Bloomberg began collecting comprehensive data on the securities.”
Dugan reports, “Investors have bought $65.6 million of Apple-linked notes in January. On the day before the earnings report, HSBC Holdings Plc’s U.S. banking unit also sold $710,000 of notes tied to the company, and UBS AG issued $120,000 of securities.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N continues among the fiscal wizards who gave loans to people who couldn’t qualify, because the rest of us would pay it back … never give a sucker an even break.
It’s time for us individual AAPL shareholders to form a bounty committee to track down those Goldman criminals and make it clear to them that they’d better not try this crap again.
I don’t think they’d care. Actual SEC indictment, prosecution, sentencing and jailing of GS executives would be much more effective.
But sadly, our Corporate Oligarchy runs our government, runs the SEC. That is, unless President Obama grows a pair and actually does something useful for We The People, for a change. 😕 Yeah, right.
Same guys that caused the financial meltdown, that have yet to pay…
P.E.D. reports, “This would not be the first time Goldman Sachs made money betting against its clients.
Indeed! Remember the subprime lending scandal that triggered our ongoing worldwide economic depression in 2007? I recall Goldman Sachs selling off ALL their bad loans JUST before the scandal hit the streets and the 2007-2009 ‘Great Recession’ (aka Great Depression II) began with the collapse of Countrywide Financial.
2007–2009 recession in the United States
IOW: FSCK -U Goldman Sachs, parasites.
@Derek – “I recall Goldman Sachs selling off ALL their bad loans JUST before the scandal hit the streets and the 2007-2009 ‘Great Recession.’”
I don’t believe this is factually correct. GS created and sold securities that quickly lost value during that period, but wasn’t able to sell all of them … and incurred losses on those it continued to hold.
Thank you Steve81. Please remove ‘ALL’ from my post.
As rumors of the sub-prime loans problems were just hitting the net, GS were the first who intended to sell off ALL their bad loans. But they got caught with fire in their hands and got burned. There was some minimal scarring of justice. But not enough to stop them from further parasitic abuse of our capitalist system. They’re that evil and stupid. Etc.
Any here criticizing GS here actually know how GS is making money on these securities? Do you know what kind of hedge they are using? Please explain in detail.
Apple and Apple shareholders and just tools for the real money-makers who then quickly discard the tools.
Hang ’em high.
what a shame the USA adopted, with minor changes, most of English common law, but the founding fathers did not have the foresight to save a special square in front of the Capitol for public beheadings of traitors and felons.
the gene pool will only be more contaminated with time if the public allows this kind of scum — the worst kind — to breed.
Sheeeeiit!!!
Apple, Inc. The company the rest of corporate America loves to hate. I get genuinely tired of this obfuscation. I’m beginning to think aapl would be in the upper $8s by now if WS would just shut up and let it be what it actually is – a complete and total American success story. But every idiot has to give their two cents, and those that actually know what they’re talking about use their knowledge to try and manipulate. Just let it be…
Goldman Sachs is to finance what Mosanto is to agriculture.
Capitalism at its best (read worst).
Those derivative products are the lamest way to make money, and should be illegal.
The mafia compared to these guys are boy scouts, they just dont use bullets.