From today's Yahoo Finance commentary
1:05 pm : Stocks have spent the entire session trading in negative territory. The downward bias comes as Goldman Sachs announces a common equity offering and retail sales data post a surprise decline.
Financial stocks (-5.5%) have been under pressure since the opening bell, and have since led losses in the broader market. The sector's downturn comes amid a $5 billion common equity offering from Goldman Sachs (GS 118.43, -11.72). Though the offer was widely expected, investors are nonetheless displeased since it will prove dilutive and is priced at a discount relative to the stock's prior session closing price. Goldman complemented the negative headline by announcing it will cut its quarterly dividend. Such announcements have overshadowed the company's better-than-expected earnings results.
http://finance.yahoo.com/marketupdate/overview++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What a sucker play IMHO:
First they get to rewrite their bad loan provisions 'cause
the financial commercial banking bonus types lobbied congress
to allow them to pretty much decide how much they can book
worthless assets on their balance sheet
Second they dilute shareholder equity by flooding the market
with more common stock
Finally, to add insult to injury, they cut their dividend.
{gotta pay themselves their bonuses from somewhere}