Analyst: Sell! Goldman Shares Drop After Rolling Stone Article
Well, looky here: Goldman’s Shares Drop Sharply After Downgrade blares New York Times‘ Dealbook blog.
Noted financial industry analyst Richard X. Bove slashed his price target on Goldman Sachs shares and changed his rating to sell, saying that pressure was building for the Justice Department to take action against the investment bank.
Bove writes:
The new Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone magazine is another all-out attack on the company. However, this time the attack is backed by a 650-page Senate report signed by both a Democrat and a Republican.
Taibbi’s article details how top Goldman executives defrauded their clients to make a killing in the financial crisis – and then lied about it to Congress.
Read Bove’s sell rating.
Read the full story: The People vs. Goldman Sachs: A Senate committee has laid out the evidence. Now the Justice Department should bring criminal charges by Matt Taibbi
UPDATE: Standard & Poor’s piles on: Goldman “faces increased risk of a material lawsuit by the Department of Justice for allegedly misleading clients,” an S&P equity analyst wrote in a note today, while lowering his price target on Goldman.
The note, released at 11 a.m. Thursday, made similar points to one released before the market opened by Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove . The shares opened lower after Bove, who only recently had cut his rating to “Neutral” from “Buy,” dropped it to “Sell,” citing a critical article by Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, who earlier gained fame for referring to Goldman as a “‘great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” [The Street]