I find it awfully convenient that Goldman announces that they did poorly, for them, in their trading over the last quarter. I wonder if there was anything going on in the last quarter?

Losses on Goldman Sachs’s trading desks exceeded $100 million on three days during the period that ended on June 30, according to a filing today by the New York-based company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm also disclosed that trading losses surpassed its value-at-risk estimate, a measure of potential losses, on two days.

Not only did they start losing money, but they did it while surpassing their VAR. Why, that’s pretty undisciplined for a firm that did not have a losing day the previous quarter. If I was a cynical suspicious type, I’d believe they’ve been rigging their books and now that the tide is going out against them, they want to make themselves look better.

There was that little ugliness that they’ve just finished up.

Goldman Sachs agreed last month to pay $550 million to settle a fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC over Goldman Sachs’s 2007 sale of a mortgage-linked investment.

And of course the Financial Reform bill was passed and signed into law. They were definitely a target in that and have already responded to the bill.

It’s just a funny coincidence that they all of a sudden start losing money and do so in such an undisciplined manner that it looks like they’re reporting to the SEC what they want the SEC to see. Of course this is how all public companies report, which is an issue in its own right, but it certainly does look like Goldman is making a mockery of the reporting rules and the SEC.

And no, I of course do not expect anything to happen as Goldman and the other big boys pony up a lot of cash to their lobbyists.