What could Dick Bove be thinking?

In a break with Wall Street tradition, the Rochedale Securities research analyst issued a very rare sell rating last week -- on Goldman Sachs, no less.

Analysts live or die by their access to corporate managements, and corporate managements, like the army in Catch-22, want to be liked. And they like to have their analysts embedded. Like journalists covering a war by traveling with the U.S. army, the analyst at the CEO's table gets a ringside seat on the corporate story. And also like the reporter, the analyst only gets to see what his hosts want to show him.

Wall Street analysts rarely go off on their own, because they live and die by corporate access -- their cherished ability to get the CEO to take their phone calls. Thus, when a high-profile analyst slaps a sell recommendation on a major firm, we have to assume it's because the relationship has outlived its usefulness to the analyst. Let's face it: nobody is so powerful that they can put a sell on Goldman Sachs (GS) with impunity.

We won't ask what tipped Bove that the game is up at Goldman. In the conflicted world of Wall Street, one does not have to have a positive outlook on a stock to maintain a buy recommendation. But there is a creeping sense on Wall Street that the game may be up in a more fundamental way. Wall Street often attracts the Best and the Brightest, but it also turns them into fatuous morons who believe no one else will be smart enough to catch them.