As Rudyard Kipling is commonly misquoted, the most important thing to do in a crisis is to “keep your head while all around are losing theirs.”
In fact, incoming trading head Marc Nachmann [sorry Jim Esposito and Ashok Varadhan, but we all know what’s happening] would be wise to have that quote inscribed on the walls of the trading floors at 200 West Street, because the investment banker purge of once-powerful traders is clearly causing some deeply panicky behavior amongst the Bloomberg Terminal jockeys at Goldman Sachs.
A third Goldman Sachs banker in 18 months has been charged with insider trading.
Bryan Cohen – a vice president in Goldman’s investment banking division for consumer and retail – was accused on Friday of reaping gains from a scheme that allegedly yielded $2.6 million in illegal profits, according to court records.
How dumb are we talking though?
The Securities and Exchange Commission said that Cohen received compensation for leaking information to an unnamed trader about upcoming takeover bids for Swiss agrochemical provider Syngenta in 2015 and Buffalo Wild Wings in 2017.
Oh, “Buffalo Wild Wings”-level dumb? That’s…instructive. It’s almost like Cohen might have thought that no one would put a stock like $BWLD together with a fancy-pants trader at the Deathstar of global finance. But somehow even this wildly understaffed and rather inert SEC managed to notice it, maybe because Goldman traders have developed a habit of acting out in the throes of their fall from power:
The charges against Cohen follow two other instances of insider trading allegations against Goldman bankers in the last year and a half.
An employee was sentenced to three months in prison in June for earning illegal profits by trading on proprietary information about some of Goldman’s clients.
Last year, a former Goldman analyst pleaded guilty to leaking tips about upcoming mergers to an NFL linebacker in exchange for tickets.
But also, these instances are very very dumb. If Goldman’s traders feel the human yearn to survive via cheating, they should either get better at it or just go work somewhere where they won’t feel so under pressure to do well. Putting everyone around you at risk to grab an edge on the stock of a beer and wings concern is no way to go through life. Sure, it must be a nightmare to watch your colleagues pack their shit en masse on a regular basis, but mediocre equities traders are still in demand at places that rely less on performance.
After all, hedge funds aren’t totally dead yet!
A 3rd Goldman banker in 18 months has been accused of insider trading [BI]