Late Lunchtime Links: Goldman's killer quarter may not pay

If you are one of the many visitors to this site who it appears would to like to see Goldman taken down a peg or two, you may be a little disappointed. According to Fox Business, Goldman's traders are, 'cranking out record revenues in trading bonds.'

Fox attributes its insights to 'senior traders at rival firms', who may not be best placed to cast judgement on Goldman's success. However, their verdict is confirmed by a research report yesterday from Barclays Capital which raises Goldman's EPS for the first quarter on the back of likely strong fixed income results.

Alliance Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz also continues to rate Goldman as, 'holding all the cards,' compared to rivals. However, Hintz doesn't appear to think this will flow through to record pay: he's predicting that Goldman's compensation ratio will fall to a mere 20% of revenues this year.

UBS says yesterday's figure for FICC revenues is actually 'slightly higher' than the reality. (Financial Times)

BofA Merrill is hiring 'to be great' outside the US. (Bloomberg)

Jefferies hires two for credit sales, one from ML, one from RBS. (Bloomberg)

Rothschild has hired two German private bankers from UBS. (Wealth Bulletin)

SocGen has hired two people for German investment banking. (Bloomberg)

Les Echos thinks France and Germany will implement a bank tax. (Bloomberg)

G20 split on bank pay. (Financial Times)

Volcker thinks the Volcker rule will go ahead. (WSJ)

What living wills can't do. (Economics of Contempt)

What living wills can do (Economics of Contempt)

Gartmore shares down 50% in past week on insider trading fears (Telegraph)

The absolutely appalling state of the Irish banking system (Bloomberg)

"I take issue with this portrait of Machiavellian, greedy traders prepared to risk the whole bank in order to get bigger bonuses." (Financial News)