Market Correction

On Friday Wall Street deflated with a mighty belch, as the Dow dropped over 500 points, the worst one-day loss since 2008. Overall there’s been a 10 percent drop from the May 19 peak, so it’s officially a “Market Correction.“

Why? Some blame it on the fears about the instability of China’s economy, others on the EU and Greece, or the Fed, or the low price of oil and other commodities, or the Zodiac.

SEC: Goldman Cheated

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors with a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) based on subprime mortgages. Goldman failed to disclose that it structured these unregulated instruments in partnership with a hedge fund that was also shorting these securities — betting against them. The CDOs failed to the tune of $1 billion, and investors and bond insurer MBIA were stuck holding the bag. Goldman made $15 million on the deal; the hedge fund made $1 billion when the CDOs went bad.