Goldman’s rotten trading quarter on Wall Street

Dow trading: Traders on the floor at the closing bell of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the New York Stock Exchange in New York recently. — AFP

BIG Wall Street banks have spent billions of dollars and untold man-hours in recent years transforming their trading desks from hedge-fund like operations trading on their own account into market-making businesses offering a price based on what customers want to buy or sell.

But the shift in business model, prompted by reforms following the 2008 financial crisis, has done little to shield banks from suffering big losses when markets move against them, traders and risk managers told Reuters.