[patagonia]

Financial modeling is about risk adjust return. Because GS knows they can not determine with certainty the outcome of a given investment, they diversify and hedge. Most of all, GS is a market maker, the equivalent of a bookie. To say that GS’s models “didn’t come close” is to ignore all the ways in which such a grading scheme is different than GS’s actual business model. If their WC prediction efforts acted as anything more than a fun spirited PR project, it was likely that GS wanted to somehow keep its employees engaged and adding business value during the WC which they otherwise would have been certainly watched all month.