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Friday, April 16, 2010

Financial Shares Tumble After Goldman Sachs Charged With Fraud

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Financial shares tumbled after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with fraud related to packaging and selling collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.

Goldman Sachs, the most profitable firm in Wall Street history, tumbled 10 percent to $165.02 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 11:12 a.m. in New York for the biggest intraday decline in a year.

A gauge of banks and brokerages in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index sank 4.3 percent for its biggest decline since February 4 and the top loss among 24 groups. Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. lost at least 4.3 percent as all 27 companies in the S&P 500 Diversified Financial Index declined at least 1.7 percent after the SEC announced its action. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class A shares tumbled 5.1 percent.

Goldman Sachs misstated and omitted key facts about a CDO as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement today. The SEC also sued Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman Sachs vice president.

“I wouldn’t want to own Goldman stock right now,” said Keith Goddard, president of Capital Advisors, which oversees $810 million in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “If this turns out to be remotely true, do you want to be doing business with someone who doesn’t have your best interests in mind? That’s the accusation here.”

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