David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, is not normally found walking the bank’s trading floor. Monday, however, was an abnormal day for many on Wall Street.
Solomon headed down to the fourth floor of the bank’s Tribeca headquarters as its traders grappled with one of the most chaotic days of market action in recent years.
He was not the only senior figure stalking the front office. Ashok Varadhan, the co-head of Goldman’s global banking and markets business, was spending much of the day in contact with the team that traded securities tied to the Vix — the volatility index ubiquitously known as “Wall Street’s fear gauge”.