Making the numbers look better

Most public firms release financial statements each quarter. Naturally, these statements have an impact on the firms' stock. Banks have been pilloried over the past year or two for taking too many risks. So, of course, banks want to be seen as being righteous stewards who do not take undue risk. That's why they play games with the quarterly results. One game they play involves the borrowing they use to fund securities trades, which was a prime factor in the blow-up and is seen as being not exactly a risk-averse practice. The NY Fed has shown that the big banks always seem to have considerably less of this type debt at the end of the quarter than they have during the quarter. I wonder why this is so. Perhaps, I'll ask my 9 year-old grandson if he knows.