If you thought Q2 trading hauls at JPMorgan and BofA were impressive, wait until you hear how Goldman did.
I won’t bury the lede any further: Goldman’s equities trading desk raked in $7.42 billion last quarter, according to results released on Tuesday. That was up 72% YoY, and beat estimates by nearly $2.5 billion.
This is the third straight quarter that Goldman’s equities business beat not just its own revenue record, but the record for any bank.
As the figure shows, equities trading revenue at Goldman’s inflecting on a trajectory that resembles the early stages of a semiconductor rally.
FICC likewise posted a big beat. Revenue there was $4.59 billion, up 32% and $800 million ahead of consensus.
In IB, overall fees of $3.40 billion topped estimates by a mile. Consensus there was $2.88 billion.
Advisory chipped in $1.378 billion (that was actually a slight miss), debt underwriting $1.032 billion and equities underwriting $985 million. That latter figure was up 130%.
Recall that Goldman, along with Morgan Stanley, was the lead underwriter in the SpaceX IPO.
Overall Global Banking & Markets revenue in excess of $15.5 billion rose by more than half versus the same period last year and by more than 20% sequentially. The IB backlog was higher versus both year-end 2025 and Q1 quarter-end.
This, folks, is why you focus on what you do best. More to the point: This is why, when you’re Goldman, you don’t squander time, money and shareholder value on a silly mass-market consumer lark.
David Solomon has definitively righted this ship, but he gets no credit in my book: He was the one who led it off course. If you’re running Goldman, the first rule is to let Goldman be Goldman. He’s doing that now, and the results speak for themselves.
But just in case, Solomon cheered the numbers on Tuesday. “We are relentlessly driving our long-term growth strategy, and given what we see in our pipelines, we expect this flywheel of activity to continue,” he beamed, basking in the glory of the Markets and IB blowout. “Momentum has accelerated throughout our businesses.”
Net revenue last quarter was up nearly 40%. EPS of $20.98 beat estimates by — drumroll — more than $6.
As a simpleton investor, I at least realize that volatility equals “hay” in the hands of professionals- and not necessarily something I should react to.
I try not to sell when “they”, collectively, are trying to frighten me; and if I need cash, I try to sell closer to the high than the low. Just ride the longer term wave. 🙂
This is the definition of “killing it”.