Headed into Q2 results Wednesday, it was just a matter of how bad Goldman’s report would be. And please, spare me any grief for that characterization. I’m being nice. Mike Mayo told Bloomberg at one point last week that “probably half a dozen items [will] fall into the weak, bad or ugly category.”

There was no chance the report would be good, or at least not from a profits perspective, and certainly not by the firm’s standards, which are high to put it mildly.

Goldman made no secret of this. In fact, they deftly managed expectations, tipping a steep decline in trading revenue, real estate-related writedowns and a sizable hit from the disposal of GreenSky, the installment lender the bank decided to offload as part of a hasty retreat from David Solomon’s ill-fated adventures in consumer banking.

As a result of the firm’s de facto preannouncements, the EPS bar was lowered by half in a matter of weeks. The goal, plainly, was to blunt the impact of the report, which did indeed show a steep decline in profits. Earnings fell almost 60% YoY. Return on equity was 4%, the worst among major banks. Despite the dramatically lower bar, EPS of $3.08 still missed estimates. Consensus, which was up around $7.50 as recently as mid-June, wanted $3.94.

Goldman broke out the impact of three selected items: A gain on the sale of Marcus loans, losses from principal investments in asset and wealth management and the Greensky hit. The combined net impact was a $3.95 reduction to EPS and a 5.2pp drag on annualized ROE.

More specifically, the real estate hit manifested as a near half-billion dollar impairment ($485 million) in asset and wealth management, where expenses were 16% higher. The unit showed a $403 million loss in equity investments attributed to property. Debt investments also reflected property markdowns. In consumer, a $504 million goodwill impairment pushed up non-compensation expenses materially. Overall operating expenses for the firm rose 12% YoY.

All of that was expected, so it’s not clear how perturbed markets should be about it. If you hadn’t come to terms with it by now, you probably weren’t paying attention, which suggests you didn’t care all that much in the first place.

Platform Solutions, where GreenSky lived, showed a record pre-tax loss of $872 million for the quarter. Somehow, consensus only expected a $400 million loss there.

That brought the YTD red ink to $1.18 billion. The unit lost nearly $2 billion in 2022.

In markets, FICC revenue of $2.71 billion fell 26% YoY, and missed estimates, although not by much.

Notably, equities trading revenue of $2.97 billion was a solid beat, and actually rose slightly from Q2 of last year. In fact, it looks like Goldman was the best performer on the Street in equities. Goldman put up a record in equities financing, where prime drove a 22% YoY jump in revenues.

I suppose that means when it comes to trading, Morgan Stanley had the worst results this quarter, but you’re reminded that James Gorman managed to rescue the stock on Tuesday with upbeat comments about a possible bottom for trading and IB.

Speaking of IB, Goldman posted equity underwriting revenue of $338 million, which topped estimates and represented a 133% YoY increase. That underscored the ECM “green shoots” narrative. Debt underwriting was basically in line at $448 million.

Although Goldman was still number one in completed M&A, advisory revenue of $645 million dropped by almost half YoY and missed estimates badly. Analysts wanted $775 million. Overall IB fees were $1.43 billion, down 20% from the same period a year ago. The firm said its backlog rose compared to Q1, though, reflecting an increase in advisory. That’s incremental in the context of the dealmaking “trough” narrative.

The provision for credit losses in Global Banking and Markets included a reserve reduction “related to the repayment of a term deposit with First Republic Bank.” (So, Jamie Dimon gave Solomon his $2.5 billion back I guess.) Overall revenue across Markets and IB of $7.19 billion was a beat.

It’s hard to know what to say about these results. Obviously, Goldman is in a transitional period, and there are lots of lingering questions about Solomon’s leadership in light of what, by now, it’s fair to call a wholly misguided push into consumer banking.

That said, it can’t possibly get much worse on the earnings front. YTD profits are down 36%. Revenue of $10.9 billion for Q2 fell 8% YoY, but actually beat estimates.

Solomon tried to make sense of it all on Wednesday. “This quarter reflects continued strategic execution of our goals,” he said.