Goldman Sachs traders are having a record year. The bank sent an executive to CNBC to explain how they did it. He did not say "we have more money than God and access to order flow you'll never see." He said other things.
The exec broke down what's driving stocks. Markets, he noted, are headed somewhere. The equities desk fuels growth. These are sentences that communicate nothing while sounding like they communicate everything. It's a skill. You don't learn it at Wharton. You learn it by watching your boss do it for seven years while you nod and pretend the words mean something.
Goldman traders make money because they sit between every major transaction in global finance and charge rent. They see your order before you see your order. They know what the pension fund in Norway is buying before the pension fund in Norway knows what it's buying. Then they act surprised when CNBC asks them how they're so good at this.
The interview contains zero useful information for retail traders. It was never meant to. You're watching a man describe a machine you'll never touch, explaining rules you'll never play by, in a game you're not invited to. But they frame it like advice. "Here's what's driving stocks." What's driving stocks is that you're the product and they're the buyer. What's driving stocks is that your Robinhood order gets sold to Citadel who sells it to Goldman who front-runs it and takes a penny. Do that a billion times and you get a record year.
The best part is calling them traders. They're not trading. Trading implies risk. They have none. They're toll collectors on a bridge you're forced to cross. But "Goldman toll collectors are on pace for a record year" doesn't get clicks. So we call it trading. We pretend it's skill. We send a guy to CNBC to explain the magic. And somewhere in Ohio a guy with three shares of NVDA writes down notes like he's about to crack the code.
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