Not So Good Friday For Goldman and Lehman

[Warren Stupidity]

Source: Forbes

What if the other shoe drops but no one hears?

Standard & Poor's analysts tested the tree-falling-in-an-empty-forest scenario, as it lowered the outlooks for Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers to negative while markets were closed.

Standard & Poor's analysts Scott Sprinzen and Diane Hinton affirmed their AA-/A-1+ rating for Goldman Sachs Group (nyse: GS - news - people ) and A+/A-1 rating for Lehman Brothers Holdings (nyse: LEH - news - people ), pointing to strong underlying businesses and acceptable first-quarter earnings. But S&P also lowered the companies' outlooks to "negative" from "stable" on expectations of 20%-to-30% drops in net sales after write-downs going forward.

The analysts also revised their outlook for the U.S. securities industry at large to "negative," meaning there is a one-in-three chance that there will be a rating change in the next two years.



Read more: http://www.forbes.com/markets/emergingmarkets/2008/03/21/goldman-sachs-closer-markets-equity-cx_mp_0321markets18.html

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Just in case anyone thought that the financial market crisis was over, the unraveling is continuing, and stunts like this good friday news dump are not going to help restore confidence.

[islandmkl]

1. probably had some 'private-contractors' hired to get the news out....

just a bad day or two for the contractors, you know....

[bbinacan]

2. Those are still

damned good ratings.

[TheWatcher]

4. The Rose Colored World Never Fades

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Yeah, it sucks to close up 7%

Oh, wait. No it fucking doesn't! Go GS!!!!

[femrap]

5. And how many TRILLIONS of

dollars of DERIVATIVES are out there? We are so f*cked. For icing on the cake, all we need is flooding or drought this summer for our crops. Farming is the riskiest business of all....Mother Nature controls it. And She just might be pissed this year. Never mind hurricanes.

How can you read with your head up your arse?

[Dr.Phool]

6. I guess it's possible.....

If you can get one arm in there also, and you wear one of those miners hats, with the light.

:evilgrin:

[femrap]

7. I just about spewed.....I had to cover

my mouth. Good one! Thank you for the laugh!:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I have a t-shirt that shows W with his head up his arse and it says, 'Don't bother me, I'm looking for WMD.'

I love it.

ETA: I'm still laughing. Just visualizing this....with the miner hat. Too damn funny.