A $15 Million Stake in Goldman Sachs: A Tale of Bureaucratic Whimsy

On Thursday, the Honolulu-based alchemists of Cadinha & Co., those stewards of wealth who transform mere dollars into golden geese, unveiled a curious new relic in their vault: 19,125 shares of Goldman Sachs (GS), purchased for the princely sum of $15.2 million. This transaction occurred during a quarter so prosperous for the banking leviathan that even its shadow grew fat.

The Bureaucratic Dance

A document, thick as a tax code and dull as a ledger entry, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed this act of financial sorcery. Cadinha, previously content to graze in the meadows of Berkshire Hathaway and Costco, now stakes its claim in the fortress of Goldman Sachs. The 19,125 shares-worth $15.2 million-constitute 2.1% of the fund’s reportable U.S. equity assets as of the autumnal equinox known as September 30.

Curiosities in the Cabinet

Among the fund’s other treasures, post-filing, one finds:

  • BRK-B: $38.9 million (5.3% of AUM, whatever that acronym may conjure)
  • IAU: $38.5 million (5.2% of AUM, a sibling to the former)
  • COST: $35.7 million (4.8% of AUM, a thrifty charm)
  • MSFT: $35.2 million (4.8% of AUM, a digital scribe’s delight)
  • GOOGL: $34.9 million (4.7% of AUM, a mirror to human vanity)

Goldman’s shares, meanwhile, prance at $763.32, having grown like kudzu-47% in a year-outpacing the S&P 500 by a margin that makes accountants weep with joy.

The Ledger of Leviathan

Metric Value
Revenue (TTM, or Twelve Months That Must Be Counted) $56.2 billion (a mountain of gold coins guarded by goblins)
Net Income (TTM, same as above, minus the goblins’ cut) $15.6 billion (a river of ink, or blood, depending on the ledger)
Dividend Yield 2.1% (a breadcrumb for the shareholder birds)
Price (as of market close on Monday, when the gods of finance nap) $763.32 (a number as precise as a tax auditor’s gaze)

The Institution as Carnival

  • Goldman Sachs peddles investments, markets, assets, and wealth management like a street vendor hawking sausages-hot, greasy, and irresistible to certain stomachs.
  • Its revenue streams flow from advisory fees (whispers in the dark), trading (dice rolled in a backroom), underwriting (ink-stained pacts with devils), and asset management (a magician’s sleight of hand).
  • It serves corporations, governments, and the occasional stray cat who mistakes its marble lobby for a charity.

Goldman Sachs is a colossus straddling the financial world, its boots planted in the mud of investment banking, its cloak billowing with trading profits, and its pockets lined with dividends.

The Investor’s Delusion

Cadinha’s plunge into Goldman Sachs is less a transaction than a ritual. In a portfolio otherwise devoted to the steady hum of Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft, this $15.2 million wager whispers of faith in alchemy: that a bank once hobbled by restructuring might rise, phoenix-like, to devour markets anew. The third-quarter results-a 20% revenue surge to $15.2 billion, net earnings leaping 37% to $4.1 billion-are less numbers than incantations. Share buybacks and a $4 dividend? Merely the bells and whistles of a conjurer’s stage.

Yet the markets, those capricious jesters, may yet play tricks. Trading revenue could vanish like a coin in a magician’s fist, and global volatility might yet gnaw at the bank’s bones. But Goldman’s diversified empire, its cost-cutting zealots, and its wealth management juggernaut suggest it may yet outlast the jesters-and the jest.

Glossary of Absurdities

13F: A quarterly scroll of equity holdings, filed with the SEC, where even the most arcane secrets are written in disappearing ink.

AUM: Assets Under Management, or the collective hallucination of how much money a fund “controls.”

Quarterly pricing: The average price of a security over three months, calculated by a monkish scribe with a quill.

Reportable U.S. equity assets: Stocks that must be disclosed in filings, lest they vanish into the void of noncompliance.

Stake: A claim in a company, akin to planting a flag on a moonless planet.

Dividend yield: A company’s annual dividend divided by its stock price, a ratio as meaningful as a horoscope.

Underwriting: The art of conjuring capital by selling securities, preferably with a magician’s flourish.

Asset management: The careful herding of investments, like shepherds guiding sheep through a storm.

Wealth management: Financial advice for the anxious rich, delivered with a straight face.

Advisory fees: Charges for advice, often worth precisely what you paid.

Trading commissions: Fees for executing trades, deducted before the ink dries on the contract.

TTM: The trailing twelve months, a period as precise as a sundial at midnight.

Thus concludes our tale of ledgers and lunacy. 📈

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2025-10-21 02:30