[marcusgarvey]

I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit. Because TARP was actually structured as the purchase/hedging of banks' securities. And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without knowing their Sharpe ratio, which no one knew at the time because all their valuation models were garbage as all the defaults happening in real-time soon made apparent.

[caminante]

  I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit[...]
  And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without 
  knowing their Sharpe ratio,

I think you're mis-interpreting the Sharpe Ratio and saying something different. Profit -- ex-ante or post-ante (edit: ex-post, brain fart!) -- is always a profit.[0] Whereas, you're arguing that the profit (on a risk-adjusted basis) wasn't that good.

[0] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharperatio.asp