Goldman Gets Points for Being Less Bad than Peers

[Stocks-to-Watch]

Goldman Sachs (GS) posted a 5% decline in its core Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodity trading results, which clearly hurt its fourth quarter numbers. But Goldman’s decline still put it ahead of two of its biggest competitors. Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) both posted larger dropoffs: 20% and 6% respectively, notes Sandler O’Neill analyst Jeffrey Harte.

And investment banking revenues rose 10% sequentially, better than many analysts had been expecting.

In all, a quarter expected to be a disaster for the banking Goliath was still a mess, but not as much as the Street had expected. And not quite as bad as those other guys.

That relative strength on the revenue side, and Goldman’s success at cutting expenses, is helping push the stock up more than 7% this afternoon, and leading the rest of the sector higher even as other financial companies like PNC Financial Services (PNC) posted disappointing results.



Original Article Source by Barrons.com