Goldman set to axe equity trading jobs
GOLDMAN Sachs Group will begin a fresh round of job cuts as early as this week, with its equities-trading business braced for bigger cuts than fixed-income trading.
While the bank usually culls the weakest five per cent of its employees around this time of year, the cuts are likely to be deeper in some businesses, particularly equities trading, where volumes and earnings are weak. The number of shares traded on major US exchanges so far this year is down 7.2 per cent.
The news came as Goldman Sachs salesman David Loeb, 42, left the bank. He is under investigation for possibly passing confidential information about technology companies to hedge funds. While he has never been charged with wrongdoing, his name surfaced among a small group of Goldman bankers under scrutiny in connection with an insider trading probe being conducted by the FBI.
Meanwhile a US judge yesterday ordered former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta to reimburse $6.22m (£4.1m) to help the Wall Street bank cover its legal expenses related to his criminal insider trading case. Gupta, 64, is appealing his conviction.