Follow up on Analyst Credibility

Saw the following interesting article on Bloomberg:

Goldman Sachs Hands Clients Losses in ‘Top Trades’

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. racked up trading profits for itself every day last quarter. Clients who followed the firm’s investment advice fared far worse.

Seven of the investment bank’s nine “recommended top trades for 2010” have been money losers for investors who adopted the New York-based firm’s advice, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from a Goldman Sachs research note sent yesterday. Clients who used the tips lost 14 percent buying the Polish zloty versus the Japanese yen, 9.4 percent buying Chinese stocks in Hong Kong and 9.8 percent trading the British pound against the New Zealand dollar.

Pretty interesting, I thought. Shows how much the large investment banks follow their own analysts' advice! Clearly, they did not implement the 'top trades' otherwise how would they have made profits EVERY SINGLE DAY in the last quarter. In the same time period, clients following the recommended trades would find themselves in a much worse position. If the chef refuses to eat in his own restaurant, I would rather go hungry than eat there!