Goldman, M&A Mania, and that Night at San Pietro

Financial professionals sit in the Goldman Sachs booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
September 8, 2021

Since I began writing my column for Puck, I’ve been inundated with feedback about Wall Street’s biggest characters and concerns. I’ll be engaging with some of those questions here—in addition to a few observations of my own.


Goldman Sachs cut its expectation for 2021 economic growth from 6 percent to 5.7 percent. Big deal? Little deal? No deal?

This is a real nothingburger. We’re talking about a 30 basis-point difference here, a decline of 5 percent in the overall expected G.D.P. growth rate for 2021. In other words, the brilliant economists at Goldman Sachs are still confident that the U.S. will achieve 95 percent of their original growth expectations.