GS - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
195.64 0.00 (0.00%)
After hours: 4:57PM EDT
| Previous Close | 194.98 |
| Open | 195.35 |
| Bid | 195.65 x 900 |
| Ask | 195.66 x 900 |
| Day's Range | 194.79 - 197.61 |
| 52 Week Range | 151.70 - 245.08 |
| Volume | 2,169,802 |
| Avg. Volume | 2,652,235 |
| Market Cap | 71.573B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.30 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 8.14 |
| EPS (TTM) | 24.02 |
| Earnings Date | Jul 16, 2019 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 3.40 (1.74%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-05-29 |
| 1y Target Est | 230.76 |
- Yahoo Finance•4 hours ago
NYSE sets Slack reference price at $26.00 per share
Shares of Slack will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
- Reuters•3 hours ago
Exclusive: T-Mobile prepares for Boost auction if Dish Network talks stall - sources
Investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc , which is advising T-Mobile, the third largest U.S. wireless carrier, on selling prepaid brand Boost Mobile as part of the company’s concession to gain regulatory approval to buy Sprint Corp, is expected to send out books to prospective buyers in two weeks, one source familiar with the matter said. While satellite television provider Dish Network remains the front-runner to acquire the Boost assets, Goldman has told prospective buyers as late as Tuesday that it is preparing for an upcoming auction of Boost. Another source characterized the process being run by Goldman as moving slowly.
- Bloomberg•4 hours ago
Slack Hustles to Avoid Day One Pop as Next Unicorn to List
(Bloomberg) -- As 2019’s bumper crop of initial public offerings either languishes or wildly exceeds expectations, Slack Technologies Inc. is taking a route to the trading floor that it hopes will yield a much more boring outcome.Following in the footsteps of music-streaming service Spotify Technology SA last year, the workplace messaging application is set to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday via a direct listing. It’s just the second large company to test the unusual method and will be closely watched by other potential candidates to see how successfully the company and its advisers pull it off.Investors got their first hint of how things are going when Slack’s reference price was set at $26 per share on Wednesday. Unlike the offering price paid by investors in a traditional IPO, the reference price doesn’t establish the valuation, though it’s partly based on recent trading in private markets. Its main purpose is to provide a starting point to allow trading to begin under New York Stock Exchange rules.With IPO heavyweight advisers from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co. helping to steer Slack through its listing alongside market maker Citadel Securities, all eyes will be on how the first day of trading plays out. But the company and its investors aren’t looking for a meaningful stock pop -- and want to avoid the volatility -- that often accompanies high-profile share sales, according to a person familiar with the process.On Wednesday, Slack said that its investors had converted additional Class B stock to Class A shares, increasing the number that could be sold to 194 million from 181 million, out of a total of 504.4 million. Especially because there’s no lock-up period, there’s a risk of too few investors wanting to buy or too many wanting to sell.“A direct listing can be considered risky for a variety of reasons," Alejandro Ortiz, an analyst at SharesPost, said in a note. “There is an increased chance of substantially more supply than demand for Slack’s shares. All of this could result in heightened volatility in the early hours and days of trading.”Reference PriceFifteen months after its own direct listing, Spotify trades about 12% above its reference price of $132, at about $148 a share on Wednesday. That’s well below where the stock opened on its first day of trading in April 2018, though, at $165.90 apiece.On Thursday, much of the attention at the exchange will be focused on one man. Pete Giacchi, a longtime market maker at the NYSE for Citadel Securities, will be tasked with opening the stock –- just as he was for Uber Technologies Inc.’s listing in May, people with knowledge of the matter said. It could be a long wait: Spotify’s shares took more than three hours to start trading, and it will take a while to make sure that the pricing and trading volumes coming in are at levels that Slack and its advisers are comfortable with.Supply, DemandMorgan Stanley, as the named adviser to the designated market maker, will be constantly trying to get a sense of supply and demand for the shares to advise on that opening price. The bank’s team includes global head of technology capital markets, Colin Stewart, as well as David Chen, who leads software banking. John Paci, the co-head of U.S. equities trading, will help advise the designated market maker on where the stock should open based on buying and selling interest gleaned from investors, according to people familiar with the details.At Goldman Sachs, the work will be led by Nick Giovanni, co-head of the global technology, media and telecommunications group, equity capital markets head David Ludwig and Will Connolly, co-head of the West Coast financing group and head of technology ECM.One thing Slack’s listing will have in common with an IPO: executives including Chief Executive Officer Stewart Butterfield and finance chief Allen Shim are expected to be pacing the floor of the NYSE for the open. They may not stick around all day, though. They will likely spend some time at the offices of their advisers before celebrating with employees and customers, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.Representatives for Slack, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citadel Securities declined to comment.Private FundsSlack’s decision to bypass a traditional IPO -- and the opportunity it brings to raise funds -- is yet another sign of how benevolent private markets have been to tech startups in recent years. Slack’s earliest major investor, venture capital firm Accel, has directed a fire hose of money at the messaging company over the years, investing from several of its funds to accumulate a 23.8% stake.In addition to Accel, Slack captured the imagination of elite investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Social Capital. But it was SoftBank Group Corp.’s behemoth Vision Fund, which also owns stakes in Uber and WeWork Cos., that accelerated Slack’s fundraising when it led a $250 million investment in 2017.One of the main reasons that Slack has remained well capitalized, however, is that it burns through less cash than some of SoftBank’s other investments. Uber, for instance, accumulated more than $10 billion in operating losses in three years. While Slack expects higher-than-usual losses in the second quarter, that still amounts to only about $75 million to $77 million for the three months, even including expenses related to the listing.Growth vs. ProfitabilityThe high demand for IPOs by the likes of money-losing companies including Uber, Lyft Inc. and Beyond Meat Inc. proves that investors remain focused on growth prospects over profitability –- in the short term at least.With Uber leading the pack with its $8.1 billion offering, 79 companies have raised $28.88 billion in U.S. IPOs this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That includes five other listings topping $1 billion, including the $2.34 billion IPO by Uber’s ride-hailing rival Lyft.With no lock-up period for a direct listing, Slack investors could be jittery about any updates from the company, perceived competitive threats or other risks.Tiny SpeckIn its filings, Slack has warned investors that it’s a relatively new business, launching only in 2014 after existing for several years as a gaming company called Tiny Speck. Its rocket-ship ascent has attracted plenty of investors, but gives new potential shareholders only a limited trajectory to study.Another challenge for Slack is one that fellow mega startups like Uber have grappled with, namely whether they can move beyond the core offering that their early years of success were built on. While Slack has improved its product so that it can serve larger companies, many customers still consider it an easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing workplace messaging platform, despite speculation that it could evolve into a catch-all portal for business applications.One thing that could make Slack’s debut more unpredictable than Spotify’s is its investor base. Because the company’s ownership is more concentrated among fewer, larger shareholders, it could be more difficult to gauge the supply of shares that are likely to be traded, one person with knowledge of the process said. Both buyers and sellers may also hang back on day one to see how trading goes before getting involved: Just 30 million of Spotify shares changed hands in its trading debut, less than a third of the total available.\--With assistance from Crystal Tse and William Hobbs.To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Newcomer in San Francisco at enewcomer@bloomberg.net;Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net;Ellen Huet in San Francisco at ehuet4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, ;Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Fournier, Michael HythaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks•13 hours ago
Wall Street Foresees a Fed Rate Cut: Winners & Losers
Some analysts have started to price in "insurance cuts," which means they are expecting the Fed to cut rates right before a downturn in order to save the economy.
- Bloomberg•2 days ago
Migraine-Drug Deal Hype Turns Into a Giant Headache
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. has rapidly transformed from one of biotech’s darlings into a cautionary tale of overheated M&A hype. Shares of the developer of migraine treatments surged in April after Bloomberg News reported that the company was considering a sale; the stock then took another leg up earlier this month when Biohaven canceled plans to attend a Goldman Sachs health-care conference, fueling speculation a takeover was imminent. All those gains evaporated this week when the company instead announced that it was selling more shares, something that wouldn’t happen if a deal was in sight. As of midday Tuesday, the stock was down 35 percent from its highs: Biohaven’s ongoing single status shouldn’t have come as so much of a shock. The company has arguably never been as compelling an M&A target as some investors and analysts seem to think, and faces significant risks if it has to go it alone. Deal hype isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy in biotech; in fact, it can sometimes backfire and result in the exact opposite. In the case of Biohaven, the company’s lead drug in development is a migraine pill that takes the same approach as a group of three recently approved injectable medicines that can help prevent the debilitating headaches. Biohaven's drug is a fast-acting alternative, but it will have to compete for a subset of the market with cheaper generic options and a direct rival from Allergan PLC.The drug’s tough path forward is one of the reasons Biohaven was likely open to a buyout; this launch will be even harder and slower without the financial resources and commercial expertise of a larger company. But that same dynamic is also potentially what’s keeping potential suitors away. Biohaven just isn’t the sort of company that pharma has been buying. The sweet spot of M&A in the industry has centered around cancer drugs and rare-disease treatments that command very high prices, partly by sidestepping the pricing and reimbursement problems that dog larger and more competitive markets such as the one for migraine remedies. Most recent biopharma acquisitions above $1.5 billion have been for companies working in these areas or for drugs that already generate sales. It’s possible that a drugmaker could decide to do something different, but it would need a compelling reason, and the hype-driven ascent of BioHaven’s valuation doesn’t help.This is pretty clearly a situation where takeover excitement got well ahead of reality, which isn’t uncommon in biotech. But context matters, and any investment thesis that depends on big pharma expensively bucking an M&A trend to get itself into a possible price war deserves some extra skepticism.To contact the author of this story: Max Nisen at mnisen@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Max Nisen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, pharma and health care. He previously wrote about management and corporate strategy for Quartz and Business Insider.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- MarketWatch•2 days ago
Here are the best-performing U.S. stocks as S&P 500 nears record level
DEEP DIVE Semiconductor stocks led a broad U.S. rally on Tuesday, as investors cheered both the latest comments about economic stimulus from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and President Donald Trump’s tweet about his talks with China’s leader, and as the Federal Open Market Committee began its two-day policy meeting.
- American City Business Journals•2 days ago
Goldman Sachs banks on e-commerce, breaks ground on massive Brooklyn facility
Joe Sumberg, co-head at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, discusses the deal and why it's special.
- Bloomberg•2 days ago
The Last Great Neoliberal Experiment Comes to a Neighborhood Near You
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The opportunity zones created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 have all been set up, and the money has started to flow. When will we know if they’re working as promised to bring new growth and prosperity to distressed communities all over the U.S.? Well, maybe never — the opportunity zone is the latest refinement of a development approach previously known in the U.S. as the enterprise zone and the empowerment zone, and attempts to suss out the economic impacts of those have delivered notoriously muddled results.Still, we can at the very least say that the opportunity zones — 8,762 economically disadvantaged census tracts where investors receive favored capital gains tax treatment — are getting some investment. Real Capital Analytics, which tracks commercial real estate transactions, just released data comparing activity in opportunity zones and in census tracts that met the criteria for inclusion but weren’t chosen by their states’ governments:Transaction volume hasn’t just been rising faster lately in opportunity zones than in also-ran tracts; it’s been rising faster there (at least until the first quarter of this year) than in the rest of the country, too.Then again, as is apparent from the above charts, the opportunity zone census tracts were already outperforming everyplace else before they were designated, too. A recent report from Reonomy, another commercial real estate data provider, indicates that they were laggards for most of the past two decades, which is perhaps a sign that the states have mostly picked places that were just starting to rebound. Disentangling cause and effect here is hard, as it has been throughout the history of enterprise/empowerment/opportunity zones, although the design of the opportunity zone program may lend itself better to measurement than some of its predecessors.The concept is usually credited to Peter Hall, a British geography professor who after a visit to East Asia in 1977 proposed in a speech that the U.K. establish, as he paraphrased it a few years later, “a genuine mini Hong Kong in some derelict corner of the London or Liverpool docklands, representing an experimental alternative to the mainstream British economy.” Hall, who died in 2014, was a Labour Party-supporting expert on urban planning,(1) but his idea quickly caught on with planning-averse conservative/libertarian politicians in the U.K. and U.S. “Enterprise zones, it seems,” Hall noted with bemusement in 1982, “have become the standard urban policy package of radical right wing administrations in English-speaking countries.” In the U.K., the newly elected government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put in place a program of urban enterprise zones featuring reduced regulation and taxes in 1980. In the U.S., President Ronald Reagan tried but never succeeded in creating an enterprise zone program on the national level, but 40 states started their own and, in 1993, President Bill Clinton succeeded in getting Congress to approve the Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities Act.This bipartisan appeal was a trademark of enterprise zones and their ilk. They united concern for the poor with a belief in free enterprise in a package that pretty much summed up the era of neoliberalism, which saw markets as the best tools for attacking social problems. The zones also, it must be said, had little demonstrable positive economic effect:Unfortunately, research into the effects of these enterprise zone programs in the U.S. has found at best mixed results, with little consensus in the literature as to whether they are beneficial.That verdict comes, interestingly enough, from the document that helped launch the opportunity zone movement: a 2015 paper, “Unlocking Private Capital to Facilitate Economic Growth in Distressed Areas,” by Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, and Kevin Hassett, the current chairman of President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers. The paper was commissioned by the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank that had just been launched by Sean Parker, the billionaire co-founder of Napster and early backer and then-president of Facebook Inc.Parker is perhaps most identified with the words uttered not by him but by the actor who portrayed him in the movie “The Social Network,” Justin Timberlake: “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.” That, to some extent, was Bernstein and Hassett’s reasoning in their paper. Previous enterprise zone efforts in the U.S. had been too limited, scattershot and complicated to attract large-scale investment:Previous programs left many potential sources of investment untapped. There was no structure in place to encourage investors to exit existing investments, for example, and bring their realized gains into enterprise zones. There also was not a structured way to involve intermediary groups, such as banks, private equity, and venture funds, in investing in enterprise zones, although these groups generally can bring large resources to projects and have the potential to invest in companies that may thrive within an area. The emphasis on individual businesses instead of larger structures and institutions may indeed be part of the reason for the tepid results of enterprise zone programs.What was needed, they concluded, was “a simpler, targeted approach” to lure institutional investment into economically depressed communities. A little more than two years later, that approach was law. Steve Bertoni described how it happened in an entertaining Forbes cover story a year ago: Parker enlisted Republican U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey as leaders of the effort on Capitol Hill, and he stalked the halls of Congress to buttonhole lawmakers himself. Scott and Booker introduced the plan as a stand-alone bill in 2016, with another bipartisan pair doing the same in the House. Then they, as Bertoni put it, “decided it was best to wait for some fast-moving legislation to hitch it to.”That legislation turned out to be the 2017 tax bill. The House version didn’t include opportunity zones but the Senate one did, thanks in large part to Scott’s presence on the Finance Committee, and it survived in conference committee, too. One big mark in its favor was that, in a bill that the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated would reduce tax revenue by $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years, its projected cost was a mere $1.6 billion.(2)To qualify for opportunity zone status, a census tract generally (there are a couple of other ways for some tracts that don’t quite meet these criteria to qualify) has to have a poverty rate of 20% or more, or a median family income that’s 80% or less of the state or metropolitan-area median. Investors can defer capital gains from past investments and be exempted from some or all taxes on new capital gains by putting the money into “qualified opportunity funds” that invest in commercial and industrial real estate, housing, infrastructure or businesses in the zones.More than half of all U.S. census tracts qualified for inclusion, but governors of states and territories, and the mayor of Washington, were charged with winnowing that list down. That task was completed by the middle of last year, and the chosen zones — which constitute 12% of the nation’s census tracts and can be perused most easily via the Economic Innovation Group website — are a mix of areas that I think everyone can agree are quite disadvantaged and others that happen to have met the criteria but are right next to prosperous areas and might have attracted investment in any case.Overall the selections tilt in the former direction: According to an Urban Institute analysis, the median 2012-2016 household income in the opportunity zones was $33,345, compared with $44,446 in the eligible-but-not-chosen tracts and $58,810 in the country as a whole. Mayors and other local officials have been deeply involved in picking opportunity zones in some states, following a template for investment devised in part by urban thinker and former Barack Obama administration policy maker Bruce Katz that aims to “spur growth that is inclusive, sustainable and truly transformative for each city’s economy.”Still, as Noah Buhayar, Caleb Melby and Lauren Leatherby of Bloomberg News have been reporting, some of the opportunity zones that have investors and developers most excited are in places like far-from-struggling downtown Portland, Oregon; an already-under-development “live, work, play paradise” just north of Miami; and the booming neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens where Amazon.com Inc. was going to locate a new headquarters before backing out in the face of local opposition. Real Capital Analytics predicted late last year that “the NYC Boroughs, Los Angeles and Phoenix may prove to be the most active markets for opportunity zone funds given their larger market size and their relatively high proportion of opportunity zones.”There is of course a balance that must be struck between investment viability and giving help to areas that truly need it. There’s also a risk that investments in poor neighborhoods will drive current residents out rather than enriching them, not to mention the risk that opportunity zones will turn out to be more successful in reducing the taxes of real estate investors — who already got big breaks from other provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — than in stimulating productive investment. With Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs partner, in charge of setting the rules for opportunity zone investment, critics such as Samantha Jacoby of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have charged that they’ve tilted way too far in the direction of making life easy for investors rather than ensuring that investments improve the lives of zone residents. Even the Economic Innovation Group is now pushing for stronger data collection rules so that “the success of the Opportunity Zones policy can be properly evaluated.” Opportunity-zone idea man Bernstein, a senior fellow at that very same Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me this week that, while he too has mixed feelings about the effort, “I think I'm less ambivalent than a lot of my fellow progressives.” He said he’s been mostly encouraged by the states’ opportunity zone choices, and by the level of investor interest so far. Still, as he put it in a Washington Post op-ed early this year:If OZs turn out to largely subsidize gentrification, if their funds just go to places where investments would have flowed even without the tax break, or if their benefits fail to reach struggling families and workers in the zones, they will be a failure.Bernstein also wrote that, in fighting poverty, he preferred “direct hits” such as government-financed infrastructure investment and guaranteed health care and housing to market-dependent “bank shots” such as opportunity zones. This is true of left-leaning thinkers in Washington more generally these days — the summer issue of Democracy Journal, a past source of such Democratic Party policy ideas as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, features a multi-author symposium titled “Beyond Neoliberalism.” Voices within the Republican Party, including President Trump on trade matters in particular, have been departing from the markets-know-best policy as well. We may not see anything else like opportunity zones come along for quite a while. Unless, that is, they turn out to be so successful that the evidence isn’t inconclusive this time around.(1) Highly recommended: his book "Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880."(2) These are the static revenue estimates. The JCT's macroeconomic analysis of the bill's effects cut the overall 10-year cost to about $1.1 trillion but did not break things down to the level of including a revised estimate of the cost of opportunity zones.To contact the author of this story: Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Markit•2 days ago
See what the IHS Markit Score report has to say about Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE:GSView full report here! Summary * Perception of the company's creditworthiness is neutral * ETFs holding this stock are seeing positive inflows * Bearish sentiment is low * Economic output for the sector is expanding but at a slower rate Bearish sentimentShort interest | PositiveShort interest is extremely low for GS with fewer than 1% of shares on loan. This could indicate that investors who seek to profit from falling equity prices are not currently targeting GS. Money flowETF/Index ownership | PositiveETF activity is positive. Over the last month, ETFs holding GS are favorable, with net inflows of $6.95 billion. Additionally, the rate of inflows is increasing. Economic sentimentPMI by IHS Markit | NegativeAccording to the latest IHS Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data, output in the Financials sector is rising. The rate of growth is weak relative to the trend shown over the past year, however, and is easing. Credit worthinessCredit default swap | NeutralThe current level displays a neutral indicator. GS credit default swap spreads are within the middle of their range for the last three years.Please send all inquiries related to the report to score@ihsmarkit.com.Charts and report PDFs will only be available for 30 days after publishing.This document has been produced for information purposes only and is not to be relied upon or as construed as investment advice. To the fullest extent permitted by law, IHS Markit disclaims any responsibility or liability, whether in contract, tort (including, without limitation, negligence), equity or otherwise, for any loss or damage arising from any reliance on or the use of this material in any way. Please view the full legal disclaimer and methodology information on pages 2-3 of the full report.
- American City Business Journals•2 days ago
Goldman Sachs in talks to finance apartment tower
The proposed project marks another in a string of ambitious attempts by newcomer developers to seize on downtown's resurgence. Increasingly, investors and bankers are showing similar eagerness.
- Zacks•2 days ago
Citigroup Announces Restructuring of Sales and Trading Unit
Citigroup's (C) restructuring and streamlining efforts, along with its strategic investments in core business, should bode well for the long term.
- Zacks•3 days ago
2 Great Valued Software Stocks to Buy Right Now
In a note to clients last Friday, Goldman Sachs (GS) expressed their concern about the valuation of tech stocks,
- Investing.com•3 days ago
Stocks - Stocks Flat as Financials Fall on Growing Rate-Cut Hopes
Investing.com – The S&P; 500 made a subdued start the week Monday, as bank stocks stumbled on falling Treasury yields amid growing expectations that the Fed will cut rates.
- Barrons.com•3 days ago
How to Prepare Your Portfolio for Falling Interest Rates
Interest rates could fall by more than three-quarters of a point over the next year. That would have wide-ranging consequences for stocks, bonds, and savings vehicles like money-market funds.
- Bloomberg•3 days ago
Goldman Combines Private-Investing Units in Fundraising Push
(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is finally embracing its status as a private equity giant.The firm’s top executives in recent months have laid out plans to raise more client funds for private investing and rely less on its own balance sheet. As part of that effort, the bank will consolidate the investing activities of multiple units across the firm to add more heft to its merchant banking division, the firm said Monday in a memo to staff.Goldman’s special situations group, a trading unit which made investments in everything from equity stakes in private companies to middle-market loans and illiquid debt, will combine with the merchant banking division. They’ll be joined by a pair of real estate units and principal strategic investment group, which makes fintech wagers, according to the memo. Julian Salisbury, head of SSG, will join Andrew Wolff and Sumit Rajpal as co-head of merchant banking.“There actually is a very, very significant alternatives asset manager inside Goldman Sachs,” which has operated from a number of different units in the past, Chief Executive Officer David Solomon told Bloomberg Television in April, when asked whether he aimed to create something akin to Blackstone Group LP. “We see opportunities to expand what we’re doing for clients in that business and be a little more focused on growing our client franchise around those activities.”Under Solomon, who rose to CEO in October, the firm has been honing its strategy for the private investing business, looking to make it operate more efficiently and profitably, while relying more on fees than investment gains. Rich Friedman, who led the merchant banking unit for 21 years, handed off leadership in April to Wolff and Rajpal. The shakeup also gave Salisbury, head of the special situations group, oversight of real estate across the firm.Goldman Sachs has long been unique among Wall Street banks in the size of investments it makes with its own funds -- the firm had $20 billion in private equity investments at the end of 2018. While the company’s status as a major investor has raised conflicts for its investment bankers, it’s also been hugely profitable. Investing and lending, the reporting segment that includes the merchant bank division, contributed higher pretax profit than the firm’s trading or investment banking businesses last year.John Waldron, the firm’s president, said at an industry conference last month that the bank will look to court institutional investors with its ability to offer private equity deals and public market strategies.“This is going to be a long-term journey,” he said at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. “We’re not going to turn this battleship from balance sheet investing to fee income overnight.”Goldman shares have fallen 18% in the past year, compared with the 1.3% decline in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Financials Index. The broader S&P 500 Index climbed 3.8%.(Adds company memo starting in second paragraph.)\--With assistance from Zoya Khan, Gillian Tan and David Scheer.To contact the reporter on this story: Sridhar Natarajan in New York at snatarajan15@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel TaubFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•3 days ago
Stock Investors Are Getting Smarter as the Threats Stack Up
(Bloomberg) -- This year’s global stock rally has flown in the face of billions of dollars of outflows, mounting fears for economic growth, and most recently a bombardment of geopolitical shocks.But it might not be as defiant -- or as crazy -- as it seems.As a gauge of global shares looks to extend two weeks of gains, there’s mounting evidence that beneath the surface equity investors have been getting smart. Far from ignoring brewing risks, they’re increasingly positioned for bad news, bidding up defensive and quality companies at the expense of those more exposed to the economic cycle.It all challenges the narrative that the stock markets have paid no heed to the warnings screamed by global bonds, or that they are simply counting on accommodative central bankers to juice asset prices.“People are bracing for a bear market,” said Brian Jacobsen, a senior investment strategist of multi-asset solutions at Wells Fargo Asset Management, which oversees $476 billion. “Not predicting it. Just trying to be prepared.”As traders favor firms that can weather a potential downturn, the valuation discount of value to growth stocks has surged to the widest since 2001. The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. gauge of high quality shares is outperforming the S&P 500 Index this month. And the Russell 2000 Index of small caps is trading near the biggest discount versus the Russell 3000 Index since at least 2006.The extremity of this push into safer equities has seen the likes of Morgan Stanley warn about a “big unwind’’ if their performance stumbles. Riskier shares attempted a comeback last month, with weak balance sheet stocks in the U.S. outperforming peers with strong balance sheets.But the trend didn’t last. In June, investors are once again rewarding companies flush with cash and low debt, lifting their premium over those with less attractive financial profiles to near a record high.“Valuations don’t matter too much until they get to eye-watering extremes,” said Jacobsen. “I don’t think that they’re at eye-watering extremes” for defensive shares, he said.Momentum stocks have been another winner from the search for a place to hide, with the investing style outperforming value shares by a near-record 17% in May. They have continued beating cheaper stocks this month due to a strong overlap with quality and low-volatility equities, according to Morgan Stanley.At essence, stock investors appear to be trying to hedge their bets between two major outcomes. On the one hand, they’re staying invested on the prospect of an extension of the business and economic cycle, perhaps prolonged by a trade war breakthrough or central bank largess. On the other, they’re opting for safe shares in case the U.S.-China protectionist battle drags out or escalates, derailing global growth.“The correct positioning is not obvious and it’s a tough call,” said Edward J. Perkin, chief equity investment officer at Eaton Vance Management. “With the equity market near all-time highs, do you take economic risk by owning cyclicals, or valuation and interest rate risk by buying defensive sectors at high prices?”Perkin favors a middle ground: He likes companies with solid financials, though he’s focused on economically sensitive sectors that can outperform if growth remains strong. And he cautions that not all defensive sectors are attractive, warning against expensive yield-sensitive sectors and consumer staples due to their financial leverage and muted revenue growth.Meanwhile major asset managers like Wells Fargo Asset Management and Legal & General Investment Management say they now prefer a neutral stance, allowing them to easily maneuver depending on whether the U.S. strikes a trade deal with China or global growth falters.One thing the money managers all agree on: Despite seeing a need for caution, they’re not yet ready to call the end of this bull market.“It still may be too early to call the peak,” said Nick Alonso, director of the multi-asset group at PanAgora Asset Management. “I believe that, especially in uncertain times like these, focusing on portfolio construction as a means of achieving diversification through proper risk balancing can be a very powerful tool.”\--With assistance from Justina Lee.To contact the reporter on this story: Ksenia Galouchko in London at kgalouchko1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Blaise Robinson at brobinson58@bloomberg.net, Samuel Potter, Jeremy HerronFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•3 days ago
Wall Street's Social Calendar Swells as Summer Tee Times Beckon
(Bloomberg) -- What does Wall Street do before disappearing for a few months of golf, tennis and beach-side soirees?Binge on benefits, of course. Because there’s no better way to earn some rest and relaxation than by enduring lukewarm entrees, too-long speeches and too many air kisses, all while raising money for nonprofits.Not to be jaded or anything. As Robert Steel said of his recent binge, attending an event for Hospital for Special Surgery, which he serves as a co-chairman with Thomas Lister of Permira, “They’re like my children, I love them all.”One advantage of New York this time of year is that some of the benefits are outdoors. The Public Theater convened with roller skaters at the Delacorte Theater where it presents Shakespeare. Palm trees swayed in light Bronx breezes as the New York Botanical Garden raised almost $2.2 million and honored Chairwoman emerita Maureen Chilton.The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo, went south to the Central Park Zoo, where the sea lions squealed and fed on fish.That wasn’t wild enough for Paul Tudor Jones.“One day -- it’s on my bucket list -- I want to go up to the Arctic and see a polar bear,” Jones said. “I have a huge spot for them in my heart because they’re always hungry looking for something to eat. I want them to find a washed-up whale and eat forever.”Julian Robertson said he’d gone eye-to-eye with his dog Bear earlier in the evening, while Averell Harriman Mortimer reminisced about the flying squirrels he kept as a kid in his Manhattan apartment.“Running Goldman Sachs equipped me for dealing with all species and manners of wildlife,” Lloyd Blankfein said.“Some of whom are endangered,” added Goldman Sachs lead director and private equity investor Adebayo Ogunlesi.In the Summer Garden & Bar at Rockefeller Center, Leon Black and his wife, Debra, joined Mike Milken and more than a thousand leveraged-finance professionals at a benefit for the Melanoma Research Alliance, which the Blacks founded. Then he presided at the Museum of Modern Art’s Party in the Garden to honor Alice Tisch and others. A day later, Black was at the Central Park Conservancy’s Taste of Summer, where Italian bistro Sistina served ravioli.The most important stat on his gala scorecard?“We’re up more than 20%,” Black said at the melanoma event, crediting Jeff Rowbottom of PSP Investments and Brendan Dillon of UBS for helping raise $2.4 million. The alliance’s funding has played a role in 12 drugs that received government approval.Andrew Tsai of Chalkstream Capital Group (named for the rivers in England where he learned fly fishing) said breakthroughs in treating skin cancers are leading to therapies for other types of the disease. He’s working to make that happen as co-chairman of the Cancer Research Institute, which has focused on immunotherapy for more than 50 years.“I want to make sure we do not stop until every single cancer type has been addressed in a significant way,” Tsai said at the institute’s Through the Kitchen benefit, where guests served themselves from buffets set up in the kitchen of the Pool & the Grill, then dined at comic strip-themed tables (Ken Langone sat with a cardboard cutout of Betty Boop).During dinner at the French consulate for the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, Bill Ackman committed $4.2 million to seven investigators, including Yael David, who studies how cancer cells react to sugar.As for those speeches, some managed to cut through the chatter.For an audience including David Einhorn and Marc Spilker, outgoing New 42nd Street President Cora Cahan described how the rigor of her modern dance career guided her in bringing a theater for families -- the New Victory -- to a seedy block.“Every day you dared not be satisfied,” she said. “And the next day you tried to do it all a little bit better, a little bit deeper, and a little bit higher.”The transformation of the New York Public Library, a few blocks east on 42nd Street, was also celebrated when Carnegie Hall presented its Medal of Excellence to Vartan Gregorian, head of the Carnegie Corporation.Author Robert Caro recalled what it was like to write “The Power Broker” at the library in the early ’70s, when hours were being cut, plywood covered marble and soot hid the beauty of the facade. He said things changed in the ’80s when Gregorian became the library’s president, which Caro discovered when he pulled up to the library with his wife to attend a gala.“There were three guys standing there in red English hunting coats, holding French horns,” Caro said. “As Ina and I got out of the car, they blew a fanfare.”Singer Lizzo blew out a speaker while performing at a UJA-Federation of New York benefit and she was even better without it at the event honoring IHeartRadio executives.Ethan Hawke, who appeared at a benefit for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, cut to the chase. “If a place like BAM doesn’t exist, then the mental health of all of NYC is deteriorating,” Hawke said.He could have been speaking at any number of fundraisers around town: the one for Prep for Prep that raised $3.8 million honoring Paul Taubman, the Moth Ball supporting the therapeutic process of storytelling where guests included Adam Dell and Scott Lawin, the 92nd Street Y benefit with seven dinners highlighting a different way the institution serves the community (from summer camps to jewelry classes; Thomas Kaplan hosted one on foreign affairs).Robert Smith emphasized the power of live music to level the playing field. The Apollo Theater’s stage is a meritocracy because “regardless of who you are or where you came from, by the end of the set, you know exactly how good you are,” he said in a video that played at a benefit for the Harlem venue.On another night, Smith joked he and guests had finally made it by getting to have dinner on the stage of Carnegie Hall. But then he clarified. “For us, making it isn’t just dining on the stage,” he said. “It’s taking this hall to thousands of people every single year through the artistic and educational programming that we’ve been able to build, support and sustain.”\--With assistance from Sophie Alexander.To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven CrabillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks•3 days ago
Goldman Sachs (GS) to Combine 4 Private-Investing Units
Goldman (GS) continues to make efforts to simplify and streamline its business areas that have scope of growth, with a view to boost its stock price.
- Reuters•4 days ago
UPDATE 1-Goldman Sachs combining its private-investing units - WSJ
Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc is combining its private-investing arms, with the resulting new division to have about $140 billion in assets, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The bank is looking to combine four different units that invest in private companies, real estate and other hard-to-access deals, according to the report https://on.wsj.com/2XYZwgB. Goldman said it had no comment.
- Simply Wall St.•5 days ago
Is The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) A Smart Pick For Income Investors?
Is The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) a good dividend stock? How would you know? Dividend paying companies with...
- InvestorPlace•6 days ago
Dow Jones Today: Stocks Have a No-Fun Friday
Market participants in search of an adrenaline rush were likely left disappointed today. The major U.S. equity benchmarks meandered for most of the day, resulting in slightly lower finishes by the time the closing bell rang.Source: Shutterstock The Nasdaq Composite was the worst offender (we'll get to that in a minute), shedding 0.52% while the S&P 500 lost 0.16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.07%.The tech-heavy Nasdaq was Friday's dog among the major indexes due in large part to awful guidance from semiconductor maker Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO). Semiconductor stocks have been one of the epicenters of the U.S./China trade war and has been noted here, that trade war is expected to have some ill effects on second-quarter results. Broadcom proves as much.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsThe company slashed its 2019 revenue forecast "to $22.5 billion, from $24.5 billion and lowered its outlook for capital spending to $500 million, from $550 million," according to Barron's.Shares of Broadcom slumped 5.6% today, spurring a slew of negative action by sell-side analysts. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is the only semiconductor maker in the Dow Jones, and its shares slid 1.1% Friday in response to the weakness in Broadcom. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is home to six technology stocks. Just two closed higher today. Slim Pickings Among WinnersThe Home Depot (NYSE:HD) was the biggest winner in the Dow today, gaining 1.7% to push its month-to-date gain to over 7%. The consumer cyclical name has been moving higher on light news this month, but there are some data points that portend some strength in the consumer, the driving force of the U.S. economy. * 10 Stocks to Buy That Wall Street Expects to Soar for the Rest of 2019 "The latest data on retail sales from the Census Bureau, released on Friday, suggests that spending is now rising to match incomes," according to Barron's. "Average spending at stores, bars, and restaurants, excluding gasoline stations, was up 1.2% in April and May, compared with February and March on a seasonally adjusted basis."Walmart (NYSE:WMT) said it is laying off around 600 workers in Charlotte as part of an outsourcing program. The company is the largest U.S. retailer and biggest non-government employer in the U.S. It is doubtful that a headcount reduction of 600 was behind today's gain of 0.4% for the stock. Shares of Walmart are up about 9% this month, serving as another example of investors' preference for defensive names. The stock hit a 52-week high today.United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), the defense giant that has been making regular appearances in this space in recent days, traded slightly higher today after an analyst said the stock's drubbing in the wake of its controversial deal with Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) is a case of too much, too fast.Today, Vertical Research analyst Jeffrey Sprague upgraded United Technologies to "buy" from "hold" while lifting his price target on the stock to $145 from $140.Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS), the largest U.S. investment stock and the biggest financial stock in the Dow, rose 0.19%.The stock "is currently trading at around tangible book value, and it has over 30% upside to our fair value estimate," said Morningstar. Bottom Line on the Dow Jones TodayInvestors should expect to see more diverging data points and opinions over the near term. For example, the Federal Reserve said in a report out Friday that industrial production rose 0.4% last month. However, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading for June dropped to 97.9 this month from 100 in May. That was due in large part to tariff concerns.With second-quarter earnings season fast approaching, investors may want to consider looking for sector-level opportunities."At the sector level, analysts are most optimistic on the Energy (64%), Health Care (60%), and Communication Services (60%) sectors, as these three sectors have the highest percentages of Buy ratings," according to FactSet.As of this writing, Todd Shriber did not own any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * 4 Top American Penny Pot Stocks (Buy Before June 21) * 10 Stocks to Buy That Wall Street Expects to Soar for the Rest of 2019 * 7 Value Stocks That Are Flying Under the Radar * 6 Mouth-Watering Fast Food Stocks for Growth Investors Compare Brokers The post Dow Jones Today: Stocks Have a No-Fun Friday appeared first on InvestorPlace.
- Bloomberg•6 days ago
Goldman Gets Easy Win on Loan to Billionaire CrowdStrike CEO
(Bloomberg) -- Giving George Kurtz millions of dollars will rank among Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s safest deals.The bank loaned CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.’s chief executive officer about $10 million to exercise stock options and pay taxes, according to the software-maker’s prospectus. Kurtz pledged as collateral a quarter of his 10% stake in CrowdStrike, whose market value has nearly doubled since Tuesday’s initial public offering, making Kurtz a billionaire. His pledged shares alone are now worth $320 million, based on Thursday’s closing price of $67.56. The stock fell 5% on Friday.The transaction offers a glimpse at how the rich can leverage their assets for liquidity and the perks banks offer ultra-wealthy clients. Investor Najeeb Al Humaidhi last year received a 375 million pound ($474 million) margin loan from banks working on Aston Martin’s IPO, a person familiar with the transaction said at the time. Among the mega-wealthy, Elon Musk has used his shares in Tesla Inc. to obtain personal loans, while Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison has put up millions of the company’s shares to fund a lavish lifestyle that includes trophy properties, America’s Cup teams and the Indian Wells tennis facility in California.Read More: Goldman, Morgan Stanley want to lend the ultra-rich more moneyCrowdStrike’s initial offering of 18 million shares priced at $34 each -- above its already elevated target range -- bolstering Goldman’s position as the global IPO leader this year by issued equity volume. Tuesday’s sale was led by Goldman, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Barclays Plc.A spokesman for CrowdStrike didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, while Goldman Sachs declined to comment.Founded in 2011 by former McAfee Inc. executives including Kurtz, CrowdStrike makes software to protect clients from cyberattacks. With the IPO, Kurtz joins a wave of billionaires -- including Zscaler Inc. founder Jay Chaudhry and the China-born brothers behind Fortinet Inc. -- to emerge this year from cybersecurity businesses.Kurtz, 48, who has a net worth of about $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, wasn’t the only CrowdStrike employee to secure Goldman financing. Chief Financial Officer Burt Podbere used most of his stake to obtain a loan of as much as $3.7 million from the investment bank for the same purposes as his colleague, according to the prospectus. His stake is now worth almost 25 times that sum after CrowdStrike’s share spike.Kurtz founded his first online security firm two decades ago and sold it to McAfee in 2004 for $86 million. He worked at McAfee for seven years, becoming global chief technology officer. He left the year after Intel Corp. announced its $7.7 billion purchase of the firm in 2010.(Updates with closing share price in second paragraph.)\--With assistance from Devon Pendleton, Sridhar Natarajan and Tom Maloney.To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Stupples in London at bstupples@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven CrabillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance Video•6 hours ago
Fed leaves rates unchanged but signals possible rate cuts
The Federal Reserve will leave rates unchanged but has removed its 'patience' in monetary policy. Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung breaks it down.
