Company can't be as aggressive

Shares of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS, Stock Forum) did not participate in the recent rally, a fact that should be of concern to investors.

A whole lot can change, but unless this market is different from others in the past, some kind of leadership needs to come from Wall Street related stocks if a rally is to hold.

In the past bull market, Goldman Sachs was the go-to Wall Street bank, as its central role in mergers and acquisitions, as well as initial public offerings, made the company both an industry leader as well as a market bellwether.

In fact, Goldman was one of the few Wall Street banks to short the subprime mortgage market, a major reason for its survival. Yet, Goldman was weak enough as a result of the side effects of the crisis that it had to become a savings bank, which means that it's now governed by the same rules as any other savings bank.

From a practical standpoint, this means that Goldman is going to have to be less aggressive in how it does business. And that means that it can't take the same kinds of risks as it used to in the past.

But, does it mean that Goldman won't be able to make money? If you look at Goldman's chart, that's what the market seems to think, as the stock has sat out the entire jump from the recent October bottom.

This brings up two things to think about. One is the straight forward notion that traders don't think Goldman can grow at the rate that it used to grow because it's now a savings bank.

The other is more dramatic, which is that traders don't want to buy Goldman because they think it's washed up as a company.

It's the latter that raises the hair on the back of our necks because it implies lots of unknowns for Wall Street and perhaps for America's financial services industry in the future.