Goldman stock is up?

Yep, about a buck at last check (it had been up $2 a few hours ago). That might seem nutty, considering that the firm is getting its butt kicked on Capitol Hill - and considering that the Dow is down more than 200 points. But the Business Insider's Henry Blodget suspects that the market is relieved that nothing has turned up so far that's really incriminating. "Public humiliation makes great entertainment," posts Blodget, "but by tomorrow afternoon, it will mostly be forgotten." The hearing itself is another reminder of how clueless many of these senators really are on Wall Street matters. From NY magazine:

While the disarray has thrown everyone on the committee into an absolute tizzy, the Goldman Sachs executives have remained uniformly calm, and are reacting to all questions with patient implacability. ("Senator, without the document, I cannot answer your question," Michael Swenson just said now for the 100th time." I'm just trying to be helpful.") This, of course, is just driving the senators even more wild.

Blodget has heard that the SEC doesn't want to settle (its frequent M.O.) unless Goldman admits guilt, which Goldman is unlikely to do.

We find this stance by the SEC highly unlikely--decades of SEC settlements have been based on the premise of no lo contendere (neither admit nor deny), and forcing Goldman to admit guilt would be a huge change that would prevent many future settlements.