According to stories from Reuters, Goldman Sachs reportedly sacked a number of equities traders and related staff. The investment bank would not comment. Reuters' unnamed sources indicated that the cuts involved "employees that generated the least profits in a variety of equities businesses. The so-called cash equities area -- executing plain vanilla stock trades -- has been hit the hardest, they said." I phoned around and no one would go on or off the record to confirm or deny the reports. But, cutting marginal businesses makes good sense regardless of where we stand in the cycle. The equities end of the business is marginal at best if one looks at the simple task of taking an order from an institutional client and executing it. Institutional clients are not spending five cents a share for executions anymore. So for a sell-side firm to keep a structure intact that involves block desk traders, sales traders, research analysts and support staff does not make sense. The ominous side to the report? Less bums in seats means less monthly revenues from terminals and accesses, a fact that Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson Financial and Moneyline Telerate must keep in mind.