Here's the Serious Situation that Could Blow Goldman Sachs Out of the Water

While the SEC continues to pursue a highly questionable fraud charge against Goldman Sachs, new information suggests that a serious violation may have occurred that could cost the chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, his job and that of the President and COO, Gary Cohn, and severely damage the firm.

In Goldman's 2009 annual report to investors, Blankfein and Cohn said that Goldman “did not generate enormous net revenues or profits by betting against residental related products."

However, in an email just released by the Senate Subcommittee Investigating the Financial Crisis,  Blankfein, , wrote in November 2007: “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.”

In other emails released, Goldman's CFO David Viniar responded to an email that Goldman had made $50 million in one day by taking short positions : “Tells you what might be happening to people who don’t have the big short..."

In another released email, a Goldman employee wrote in response to news of a decline in some mortgage backed securities that Goldman was short, “Sounds like we will make some serious money.”

“Yes we are well positioned,” another responded.

Thus, it's clear, Goldman did make money shorting mortgage backed securities.The size of net profits is not clear, but the size of net profits  becomes critical.

It is a situation where size matters, thanks to Blankfein's and Levin's claim in the annual report that net-profits were not enormous.

The "big swinging dicks" of Wall Street better hope that the size of the net profit they made from short selling mortgage backed securities was tiny. If the net profit is anywhere close to as big as they think their dicks are, they are in serious trouble for reporting false information in their annual report.

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Here are the emails released by the Senate Subcommittee . They are fascinating reading.

Lloyd Blankfein Attended President Obama's Speech

The last time President Obama visited Wall Street, most top Street executives, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, failed to turn out for the event.

Things were a bit difference this time. With SEC fraud charges hanging over the head of Goldman, Goldman has confirmed to me that Blankfein did attend the President's speech, when the President spoke yesterday in Cooper Union.

The Goldman press office did not immediately have available Blankfein's reaction to the speech.

The full text of President Obama's speech can be found in the EPJ Vault, here.

Goldman Sachs Letter to Sharehoders

The Goldman Sachs annual report is out and includes one of the longest shareholder letters known to man.

You can read it in its entirety in the EPJ vault, right here.

Larry Summers: "Small business is in a quiet depression."

This morning on CNN  Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser stated that "Small business is in a quiet depression."

Not only is this true, but blamed has to be laid at the very Obama Administration policies that Summers is promoting. You can't take hundreds of billions of dollars and re-direct them to investment bankers, like Goldman Sachs, and the auto industry, and not expect a huge impact in some other sector of the economy. It turns out that other sector is small business/

Goldman Weasels Its Way Into Los Angeles Politics and Comes Out Smelling Millions Richer

Financial regulations have never stopped Goldman Sachs, so why should zoning regs.

Admittedly in a Private Property Society, private property owners would be free to do whatever the hell they damn well pleased on their own property. But in a world of government created power centers, it's only those who know how to influence the power centers, that have freedom, while the rest of us schmucks can just sit and watch from the outside.

At the start of the 21st century, Goldman Sachs has been the slick operator that finds the way to capture government officials for its own benefit. The latest example of this comes out of Los Angeles.

Last Friday,  the Los Angeles City Council voted  12 to 2 in favor of a change in zoning laws that handed the Goldman additional development rights on 111 acres of property it co-owns at Playa Vista.

According to LA Weekly:

The vote allows Playa Vista's final build-out phase to dispense with land-use rules that permitted just 100,000 square feet of commercial space — about the size of a single Costco warehouse — to allow about 2.6 million square feet of luxury housing, a smattering of senior housing and about 341,000 square feet of retail, offices and public buildings — significantly more square footage than is contained in Chicago's 92-story Trump International Hotel and Tower.

In pure dollar terms, the new rights substantially boost the value of Goldman Sachs' property — by $145.6 million, according to land-use consultant Bill Christopher.

After this play, expect more out of Goldman in terms of using and abusing the city. They appear to have dug their tentacles into the city big time. How deep?

The land which Goldman owns jointly with Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds and union pension funds is known as Playa Vista. The president of Playa Vista is Steve Soboroff.

According to LAW, Soboroff participated in a "kitchen cabinet" that recommended Austin Beutner as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's new jobs czar, the new ultimate power position in Los Angeles.

Bottom line, Goldman's man in  L.A. was directly responsible for putting the city's new power player into his new position.

LLoyd Blankfein Check Your Retirement Benefits; The Latest Embarassment for Goldman

How bad has Goldman Sachs screwed up its PR effort, while raping America, under the helm of Lloyd Blankfein?

According to WaPo, the Obama Administration turned aside an offer from Goldman Sachs to take on the assignment of selling, commission FREE, CitiGroup stock. The Administration feared giving the job to Goldman after it has been targeted by lawmakers,the media and the man on the street, for its role in raping America during the financial crisis, would have no upside.

If Goldman stock breaks below 100, Blankfein is history.

Goldman's PR Problem May Cost Blankfein His Job

Goldman's idiotic PR approach, while it rapes America, has even caught the eye of FOXnews. They write:

The decision announced earlier Monday that the Treasury Department has chosen Morgan Stanley to advise it on unloading its massive stake in Citigroup -- the largest stock offering in history and one of the most high-profile investment banking assignments in years -- has given credence to the opinion of some senior executives inside the firm that Goldman's image problems will impact its client related business. These executives worried that prospective investment-banking clients concerned about their association with the firm will simply hire other players rather than face the fallout of working with Goldman.

While the firm continues to deny it, there are indications that a coup attempt is in the making. This news story at FOX was just another plant to keep the story boiling internally and to judge reactions to the story, to see who else might be recruited for the coup attempt.

Lloyd Blankfein may, or may not, be aware of who is gunning for him, but rest assured the plotting continues. I will be very surprised if he survives the year.

Is There a Loophole for Goldman Sachs in Obama's New Bank Regulations Proposal?

President Obama's ban on proprietary trading applies to trading unrelated to client business. Many of Goldman's clients are its own current and former employees. And, much of its trading takes place within internal funds that allow participation by those clients. So is this a loophole Goldman will be able to use to skirt the rules banning proprietary trading?

A strict reading of Obama's proposal would suggest this is a stretch, but Goldman's middle name is "Stretch". Stay tuned.

Insiders at the Asian Financial Forum

The Asian Financial Forum, a two day event, begins tomorrow in Hong Kong.

As would be expected, the list of confirmed speakers are mostly Asian, including Norman T L Chan,CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and many Asian finance ministers. But, of particular note, are the very few non-Asian confirmed speakers.

They include:

Gerald Corrigan, the former president of the New York Fed (pre-Geithner) and current (surprise) managing director at Goldman Sachs.

Richard Sandor, Chairman and founder, of the Chicago Climate Exchange. The CCE trades all six greenhouse gasses. If you want to identify one man who is going to benefit the most from global warming regulations, this is the man. I saw him last at the 2007 Michael Milken Conference. He was on a panel with Milken that was attended by about 30 of us. The comment I recall most clearly from the panel discussion was made by Sandor: "In Chicago we say, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu."

Nouriel Roubini. Roubini really gets around. In many ways, I think he is probably one of the most connected guys globally. He's clearly connected in the states with Geithner, Summers (He had Summers on his payroll) and Bernanke. But he also seems to be pretty tight in China. And, it is not unusual for him to pop up in Europe.

The Latest List of Goldman Player's Now in (or recently in) Government

Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton (Robert Rubin)

Treasury Secretary under George Bush (Hank Paulson)

Current president and former chairman of the New York Federal Reserve (William Dudley and Stephen Friedman)

Chief of Staff to current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Mark Patterson)

Chief of Staff under President Bush (Joshua Bolten)

Economic adviser to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton (Robert Hormats)

Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Gary Gensler)

Under-Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural affairs under President Bush (Reuben Jeffery)

The past and current heads of the New York Stock Exchange (John Thain and Duncan Niederauer)

The chief operating officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division (Adam Storch)

Goldman’s new top lobbyist in Washington, Michael Paese, used to work for Barney Frank, the congressman who chairs the House Financial Services Committee.

In London, Goldman's former chief economist and partner, Gavyn Davies, is married to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s special adviser Sue Nye. Under Tony Blair, Davies became chairman of the BBC.

His successor as chief economist at Goldman, the late David Walton, was handed a seat on the Bank of England’s interest-rate setting Monetary Policy Committee.

Paul Deighton, who is running the London Olympic Games organising committee, used to be Goldman’s chief operating officer.

Obama’s top economic adviser Larry Summers never worked directly for Goldman, but served in Clinton’s government under his mentor, Goldmanite Robert Rubin, and Goldman paid Summers $135,000 to appear at a one-day speaking event in 2008 before Barack Obama came to power

Goldmanite Mark Carney is governor of the Bank of Canada.

Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, was a managing director and chairman of the Goldman's International Advisors department.

Neel Kashkari Treasury Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, during the Hank Paulson period at Treasury, is a former Goldman Sachs man.

The ultimate global inside operator is Mario Draghi From 2002 to 2005, he was vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of the firm-wide management committee. He is governor of the Bank of Italy. In this capacity, he is a member of the Governing and General Councils of the European Central Bank and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements.

He is also governor for Italy on the Boards of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank. In April 2006 he was elected Chairman of the very powerful Financial Stability Forum, which became Financial Stability Board in spring 2009.

List complied via data from Goldman, EPJ and TimesOnline and various government press releases.

AIG Bailout Not Only Bailed Out Goldman, But Goldman's International Bank Client List

A much clearer picture is developing of what went on during the middle of the financial crisis, when AIG was bailed out by the government and Goldman Sachs ended up receiving 100 cents on the dollar from AIG on various instruments.

The clearer picture is the result of Janet Tavakoli's provocative article, Goldman’s Lies of Omission. In the article, she claims that GS CFO David Viniar lied when he said GS's exposure to AIG would be insignificant.

A anonymous Goldman apologist who writes at Economics of Contempt responded to Tavakoli's article, calling the article part of a, "ridiculous conspiracy about Goldman and AIG [that] just won't die."

As you will see by the end of this post, the GS apologist does not only not prove his point, but he sets up the opportunity for an observer to point out that the conspiracy was much grander. The commenter points out that not only was GS bailed out, but so was GS's international bank client list.

The GS apologist essentially says that GS had insurance with AIG that cost $10 billion, but that GS had collateral against that cost of $7.5 billion (and it hedged away the other $2.5 billion in risk by buying CDS insurance against an AIG failure). Thus, the GS apologist says they would have gotten their $10 billion back to buy insurance somewhere else. Of course, at such time the markets would have been in a panic and there is no way GS would have been able to get the same insurance for $10 billion, if at all. As a number of commenters to the post point out, it would be like trying to buy fire insurance for your house while the house is on fire. So this pretty much blows the "Goldman is a saint" anonymous blogger out of the water.

But there is a comment at the Economics of Contempt post that I find fascinating:

GS sold a product to the European commercial banks, that enabled them to meet BASELII reserve requirements. It was, is essence, a piece of US mortgage paper, supported by an AIG insurance policy wrapped with a AAA-rating. At AIG's failure, French banks would have become severely capital constrained. Christine Legarde personally called Paulson to ask that AIG be saved. The reputational risk to GS of near-bankrupting all of Europe's major banks would have been devastating. Read the list of banks who received $ 10s of billions from the FED. Its the GS client list.

I'm not sure that anyone else has put this piece of the puzzle together in such a clear fashion:

European banks would have been destroyed by an AIG bankruptcy because of a product sold by Goldman Sachs. The Fed money that went to European banks, through the AIG bailout, was Goldman's international banker client list!

In other words, the AIG bailout that benefited Goldman was much greater than the billions that went directly to Goldman. A large chunk of the rest of the tens of billions went to Goldman's international bank clients. Here's WSJ initial report on who received government AIG bailout money, indeed a huge chunk went to European banks:

Goldman Sachs

Deutsche Bank

Merrill Lynch

Société Générale

Calyon

Barclays

Rabobank

Danske

HSBC

Royal Bank of Scotland

Banco Santander

Morgan Stanley

Wachovia

A quick call to a friend, who is in a position to know such things ,tells me that, off the top of his head, the international banks do all sound like important GS clients.

So here is the new expanded conspiracy theory: Without a bailout of Goldman international bank clients that were sold the drek by Goldman, Goldman would have lost all international credibility and business. The bailout, on the other hand, has strengthened Goldman's hand internationally. International banks dealing with Goldman know that when push comes to shove Goldman can get them all bailed out.

In other words, the Goldman bailout was even of much greater benefit to Goldman than most have already suspected.

How Far Are You From Lloyd Blankfein's Desk?

The recovery in the economy has been pretty much a Goldman Sachs recovery. The farther you are from Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's desk, the tougher things are. Southern California is far from Blankefein's desk.

Almost 51 million square feet of office space in Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire is now empty -- more than 17% of the total.

The exodus from office buildings that started in late 2007 accelerated during the third quarter as the anemic business climate took its toll on the real estate rental industry, according to the Cushman & Wakefield real estate brokerage.

"These vacancies are a direct reflection on unemployment," said Joe Vargas, an executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield. "Companies continue to reduce their workforce, or they are not hiring."

"There was a dramatic drop-off in leasing velocity last quarter," said John McAniff, managing director of brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. "Apparently the rebound on Wall Street did not translate to a rebound in tenant commitments. That tells me there is a lot of uncertainty out there."

Is the Federal Reserve Still Shoveling Money to Goldman Sachs?

It is a very strong possibility.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding Goldman's high velocity trading. When Goldman's 3Q earnings were announced, I wrote:

So what is this "velocity" all about? Who knows? Max Kaiser seems to think it is front running, it may very well be. You really need someone at Goldman or the NYSE to explain the high flying black box that Goldman is using. That's the only way to understand it, for sure. Goldman has captured the NYSE, so they are as likely not to tell you as Goldman itself.

But maybe it isn't even exchange traded activity. Rolfe Winkler points to an interesting exchange between bank analyst Meredith Whitney and David Viniar - Goldman Sachs- EVP, CFO, during Goldman's investor conference call following the release of 3Q results.

Whitney asks:

I have a few questions. The government purchase program was supposed to end this quarter. They’ve extended it to next quarter. How much of that is a driver of velocity of flows? And how are you positioned when they exit, if they exit, for any type of principal risk? And what do you think that impact is going to be in the larger market? That is my first question. Start off with an easy one.

Whitney clearly suspects that some of Goldman's black box high velocity trading may be tied in with Fed purchases. Winkler notes Viniar's answer is a non-answer:

Viniar: Not a problem. Look, I think, as you know and I think the Fed knows this, exiting their support of various markets is a very tricky thing. I think that they are going to do it carefully. They are going to do it slowly and over time. I think they are signaling the market. I think they are doing a very good job of letting people know they are going to continue for a while, but they aren’t not going to continue forever. As far as our positioning, I don’t think it really matters at all. As you know, as I said, most of what has happened has been the velocity, not the positioning. And I think that they are going to slowly extricate themselves for that as the markets get healthier and can pick up slack.

Whitney tries again:

Okay, but in terms of the flow volume, right — so you have been the greatest beneficiary of increased flow volumes. How are the flow volumes going to be influenced as they exit?

Viniar:

I think that they will try to time their exits for the market being healthy enough to pick up that flow. And so I think the flow will continue.

Whitney tries another direction to get at the same answer:

And then who would you imagine would be the substitute buyers?

Viniar:

The various market participants. I think it will be the various financial institutions, funds. I think the whole variety of buyers. And there is a lot of cash out there to buy.

Then another biggie from Whitney:

Okay. And then just a last one. I was teasing when I said it’s the easiest one. But it was easy for you. The last one, of the principal revenues, almost $1 billion, how much of that was cash sales, and how much were markups?

Viniar:

Oh, I would say that it was much more markups than sales…I don’t have the exact number, but it would be much more markups than sales.

Got that? Of the reported $1 billion in principal revenues, it wasn't cash sales but just markups. There is something very fishy going on here.

Goldman's high velocity black box may be even more suspicious than even I first suspected. It may be the Fed propping up certain markets by buying assets from Goldman, and then, on top of this, Goldman marking up the remaining like assets. When Whitney asks who is going to step in to buy these assets once the Fed stops propping them up, that's one helluva question. Just who would prop up a market to shovel money to Goldman?

This Whitney-Viniar exchange is reason enough to demand an audit of the Fed.

I issue another Bleg to anyone who knows what Goldman/the Fed might really be up to, please contact me at rw@economicpolicyjournal.com Confidentiality is guaranteed.

Goldman Sachs Is Not Capitalism: On a Very Confused Michael Moore

Michael Moore is one confused theorist. In his latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, he tells us at the end the end of his two hour movie that "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil."

He wants to replace capitalism with, get this, "You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

Last I looked, democracy was a political system, and capitalism was an economic system. There is no reason you can't have a democratic socialist system, or for that matter, a democratic capitalist system. There is no reason you can't have a socialist dictatorship or capitalistic dictatorship. There's no mutually exclusivity between political systems and economic systems. In other words, Moore doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

As for capitalism itself, Moore seems to think it is Goldman Sachs and other banking institutions that are the beginning and end of capitalism. He completely ignores, or is not aware, that the Goldman Sachs rip off of the masses was done in cahoots, and here is the key, with the GOVERNMENT. No government influence over the banking system, no government ability to tax and give the money to bankers, no rip off.

What else can be said? M Moore=Confusion.

As I sit here typing this on my lap top, outside, enjoying the beautiful Los Angeles day, I think of the result of capitalism being the lap top I am using, the Blackberry next to me, the Boston Red Sox scores being sent to me live on my Blackberry, the comments coming from around the country, make that around the world, to my blog posts, the youtube video I viewed earlier, the pre-washed jeans I am wearing, the non-wrinkled shirt I am wearing, the new fusion-sushi restaurant down the street, the bottled water I am drinking, the twitter post coming to me, and the emails coming to me.

The positive results of capitalism are so prevalent that it is really hard to recognize how vast they are. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is as impossible to count all the positive creations of capitalism as it is to count the stars in the universe. Goldman Sachs is like a meteor that has caused a a huge destructive crater on earth. Moore has looked at this 155 mile in diameter crater and has pronounced all stars evil, including the sun.

Yes, Moore will look inside the Goldman created creator, film from its edges, yell at the crater and, I'm sure, get filmed being thrown out by security guards. But, he won't for a minute, show you the cell phone he is using, the lightweight camera he is using, the sophisticated web site he is using to market the film, the sophisticated network used to distribute the films.

If Moore is really so down on capitalism, I will really be impressed with his movie making abilities, and his theories on capitalism, when he goes to a truly non-capitalist country, say Cuba, and uses only film and communications tools he acquires there.

I'd also like to see the fat man eating on a totally Cuban food rationed diet, while he is making such film. And I don't want to even imagine being around the seedy fat man with the coming shortage of toilet paper in Cuba.

Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein Tops the Vanity Fair 100

Is this any lesson for kids?

The evil manipulator of government resources is ranked number 1 on Vanity Fair's list of the top 100 in the Information Age.

Did Paulson Tip Off Wall St Insiders that Bernanke Was Cutting Rates?

NyPo's John Crudele is suspicious:

What has been of particular interest to me is whether Paulson contacted his friends at Goldman after a lunch with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thurs., Aug. 16, 2007. That day Wall Street seemed to get wind of the idea that the Fed was planning to do something big, and stock prices rallied strongly at the very end of that trading session.

The very next morning Bernanke cut interest rates, the first of many such moves.

Goldman/Paulson activities from the day Paulson took the oath of office as Treasury Secretary to the day he left needs to be investigated.

Crudele also catches a curious comment from current Treasury Secretary Geithner:

And, in an interview with the Journal, Tim Geithner claimed the government never did anything to benefit Goldman.

But then he also admitted that Washington had been "forced to do extraordinary things and, frankly, offensive things to help save the economy."

Nobody bothered to ask about those "offensive" things and whether they had anything to do with Goldman.

Goldman Hit Pieces Must Be Selling Newspapers

WSJ is fronting with another Goldman is a beast story.

This piece is on how privileged clients get stock tips sooner than others. Writes WSJ:

Every week, Goldman analysts offer stock tips at a gathering the firm calls a "trading huddle." But few of the thousands of clients who receive Goldman's written research reports ever hear about the recommendations...Some Goldman traders who make bets with the firm's own money attend the meetings.

It's pretty much of a non-story in my book. As anybody who has worked on the street for more than three days knows, information is not always delivered via Chairman Mao's equality for all Little Red Book formula. This kind of stuff has been going, well, forever. Some firms are more aggressive at this semi-shady stuff, with Goldman apparently leading the pack, while there are other firms who play it straight.

Of note, in the piece, it is mentioned more than once that when a Morgan Stanley analyst has a change in opinion, it is emailed to all clients simultaneously. Is Morgan Stanley leaking to WSJ or is it just dumb luck that WSJ is focusing on a Goldman move where MS is playing it Boy Scout style? Excerpts from the WSJ piece do make for a nice MS marketing piece in the context of Goldman's priviled dissemination:

At least one competitor discloses such trading tips much more broadly. Morgan
Stanley's research department sends blast emails with short-term views onvarious stocks to thousands of clients, and posts the information on its Web site. It doesn't call customers to convey the tips, because Morgan Stanley officials decided that could expose the firm to questions about selective disclosure, according to people familiar with the matter.

On the Odd Nature of the "Recovery" and Krugman's Failure to Understand It

Paul Krugman writes:

The real problem here is that the standard language doesn’t make much allowance for the kind of gray zone we’re now in; that’s because in the pre-1990 era recessions tended to be V-shaped, so that jobs snapped back as soon as GDP turned around. I don’t think what we’re going through is good news — but GDP is almost surely rising, so the recession, as normally defined, is over. ...But the economy is not recovering in the most crucial area, job creation ...

Krugman gets this correct. However, because he doesn't understand business cycle theory, he doesn't understand why this is occurring. He doesn't understand that money flows to specific sectors and not the aggregate, "the economy".

Here is what is going on. When Bernanke stopped printing money in the summer of 2008, he turned the break in the sub-prime market into a full fledged recession, thus, causing a spike up in unemployment, especially in the capital goods sectors like housing.

Normally what happens at this point is the Fed panics and starts printing money that flows back into the capital goods sectors, and hiring resumes in those sectors. Bernanke did panic in September of 2008 and started to print money, but instead of putting the funds out through the banking system, the money went to prop up the banks themselves, i.e., the favored banks and investment banks, e.g. Goldman Sachs.

So whereas in the past the Fed printed money and it was spread throughout the capital goods sectors, and hiring began anew, this time the money has ended up in the hands of the favored banks through "trading profits," so there is no new hiring, since Blankefein and crew already have their jobs. The money is just split up amongst the already employed Goldman type players. It's all recorded as revenue and income, though, thus boosting GDP.

Eventually, this money will work its way through the system, but the failure for new jobs to develop while GDP is strengthening points to how manipulated and phony this recovery is. There's no other explanation for what is going on. The money is going into the hands of the still employed, specifically the Goldman Sachs and JPMorganChase employed.

Yeah, its a recovery, for the Goldman Sachs/JPMorganChase economy.

Get Ready for the Goldman Sachs Puff Pieces

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein made himself available for a TIME magazine story about him and Goldman Sachs, which is a strong indication that Goldman is starting a PR blitz to improve its image.

But to launch such a campaign with TIME is laughable. Who the hell reads it anymore?

The 6 page story, itself, is useless.

Goldman Sachs: We Are Teflon

Goldman Sachs told CreditSights analysts that the negative image of the firm portrayed in the press had not damaged its franchise with its institutional clients nor adversely impacted its funding levels, liquidity access or stock valuation