Goldman Preps Counterattack on Senate Report

(Newser) – Goldman Sachs is ready to take a stand against a Senate subcommittee report that slammed the firm for allegedly misleading clients. Goldman will argue that the report exaggerates the firm’s 2007 bets against the housing market; it may release documents that support its belief that the subcommittee’s investigation wasn’t thorough and its math wasn’t precise, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal. Goldman doesn’t deny a negative bias on the housing market, but after sifting through its 2007 mortgage-trading records, execs reportedly feel willing to fight some of the report's conclusions.

Goldman intends, for example, to refute the subcommittee’s claim that Goldman bet $13.9 billion against the housing market on June 25, 2007. That figure is way off, Goldman says. The subcommittee missed billions of positive bets on the market that balanced out the bearish ones, Goldman documents assert. The company didn’t have “a massive net short position because our short positions were largely offset by our long positions, and our financial results clearly demonstrate this point,” it has said.