Goldman Wants To Give You Your Money Back

Pete Najarian has been telling you to keep an eye on Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs . And he's now twice as excited about these stocks after hearing that Goldman and Morgan intend to pay back the TARP money more quickly to avoid those new compensation restrictions imposed by President Obama. He takes it to mean they don't really need the TARP money.

And in terms of the price action, “the way they are outperforming Citi and Wells Fargo is impressive,” he said earlier in the week.

And Najarian isn’t the only one who’s got an eye on these developments. Both Karen Finerman and Guy Adami have taken notice, as well.

Adami, a former Goldman Guy, is particularly taken with the fact that former i-bank doesn’t like the new strings that are attached to TARP. “It leads me to believe they want to pay their people, which makes me think they anticipate a good year.”

Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst David Trone concurs. And he notes that both firms have marked their troubled assets about 20% below their rivals. That too, should bode well.

Trone doesn’t even think they need the government to create a bad bank to soak up their bad assets. He says even if they don’t sell assets to a new aggregator bank (bad bank) – “the creation of one will improve secondary market demand for bad assets and allow Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to sell holdings at a premium.”

Sounds kind of bullish. “We believe these developments could be a positive for the shares” in the short term, Trone says.

What’s the trade?

“We have a short-termbullish call on Goldman and Morgan,” says Trone. “But once we get a move they will probably trade in a range.”

"For a medium-term play you can look at JP Morgan,” he counsels

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Trader disclosure: On Feb. 4th, 2008, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders; Adami Owns (AGU), (BTU), (C), (GS), (INTC), (MSFT), (NUE); Finerman Owns (PAL), (MSFT), (BAC); Finerman's Firm Owns (DNA) & (DNA) Calls; Finerman's Firm Is Short (IYR), (IJR), (IWM), (MDY), (SPY), (USO); Najarian Owns (CAT) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (EEM) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (FCX) & (FCX) Calls; Najarian Owns (ENER) & (ENER) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (GDX) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (MSFT) & (MSFT) Short Calls; Najarian Owns (MS) & (MS) Short Calls; Najarian Owns (MOS) Call Spread; Najarian Owns (DLTR) Calls; Najarian Owns (PALM) Calls; Seymour Owns (BAC), (EEM), (FXI), (MOS), (PBR), (CBRE)

FPK or its affiliates received compensation for financial services from (BAC) during the past 12 months.