Meredith Whitney Dumps Goldman Sachs Ahead of Earnings (GS)

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is on deck for earnings this week.  Its earnings news may have just been derailed by a key influential analyst call.  Meredith Whitney, now with Meredith Whitney Advisory Group rather than Oppenheimer, has come out and downgraded the stock.  Goldman Sachs was her only “BUY” rated stock before this morning, and now the rating has been taken down to “NEUTRAL” ahead of earnings.

If you go back to when she raised her rating to a BUY it was at much lower prices (roughly $141 before her call) and she did note that her buy rating at the time was solely on a trade basis.  Whitney has remained cautious ahead of Q4 on all the major banks because of consumer credit losses and additional writedowns.  While that may not be as large of a situation at Goldman Sachs since they have no real bank, the price is now $190.00 or was before this morning’s drop.

It is too early to get a real handle on its pre-market trading, but shares appear to be down around $187 or so after closing at $190.15 on Monday.

Happy earnings season.  You can join our open email distribution list to get updates each morning on analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s and secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 13, 2009