by Calculated Risk on 12/04/2007 03:45:00 PM

Here is an interesting question for the Wall Street firms: Was it worth it? Were the recent losses just a small price to pay for the outsized profits in previous years? Goldman and Deutsche Bank say yes, they made money. Citi says no.

From Bloomberg: Citi's Losses `Greatly Exceeded' Profits for Subprime

Citigroup Inc. ... lost more money than it made from financial instruments based on U.S. subprime mortgages, a senior company executive said in a meeting at the British Parliament.
...
``Our losses greatly exceeded the profits we made in this field over several years,'' Mills said at a hearing of the Treasury Committee today.
...
Gerald Corrigan, the managing director in charge of risk management at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said that his bank had fared better than Citi.

``On balance, we probably made money,'' Corrigan told lawmakers. ``We have had a measure of success in hedging some of our exposure.''
...
Deutsche Bank probably made more money from marketing CDOs than it lost, said Charles Aldington, chairman of its London unit.