The Dow's Freefall Has Hedge Fund Traders at Goldman Sachs Anxious About Their Future Bonuses

ShareThe sleek interior of one of the world's biggest investment banksreverberated with tension this morning. No business casual here. Suitsand ties. It was not a day to take off early for the Hamptons.

Thefinancial district office of the Goldman Sachs asset management group,which runs the bank's hedge funds, was busy Friday morning with anxioustraders racing down the hallways and hush-hush meetings hashing outstrategies to stem losses in their stock holdings.

At stake:$40 billion in assets. And more than likely talk about the government'sdecision to investigate whether the country's major financialinstitutions are losing more money than they're letting on.

It'sbeen a tough week for the massively successful firm -- which earned arecord $9.34 billion last year -- and its bonus-hungry employees, asthe stock market began to reel from trouble in the home loan market andthe ongoing credit crunch.

The anxious traders have plenty ofreasons to sweat, 622,000 reasons, to be exact. That was the averagebonus in dollars awarded to the firm's employees last year, fromhigh-level executives to lowly mail-room employees.

Of course,most of the top traders' bonuses were in the seven figures, allowingthem to pump money into the economy by snapping up penthouseapartments, luxury cars and fancy yachts. And that's just one nichewhere the market's woes could affect retail sales – if traders getsmaller bonuses, they would have less to spend on costly goods.