Goldman Sachs earnings soar 62pc to record

NEW YORK - Goldman Sachs Group yesterday said quarterly profit surged 62 per cent, blasting past Wall Street expectations on record revenue, led by surprisingly strong results from trading in stocks and bonds.

The New York-based investment bank leads off what is expected to be another quarter of record results on Wall Street, once again disproving analysts and investors who had predicted rising interest rates would put a dent in the firm's global markets machine.

Instead, Goldman's record trading revenue, accompanied by one of the busiest periods for mergers and acquisitions ever, resulted in record revenue and earnings.

Its shares rose 5 per cent to hit an all-time high of US$148.15.

"They are in the right place at the right time," said Jim Russell, a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati. "Goldman also has the greatest presence in non-US markets and those markets are growing exceptionally fast," he said.

Goldman, the third-largest US investment bank by market value, said net income rose to US$2.48 billion ($3.85 billion), or US$5.08 a share, in the fiscal first quarter ended February 24.

Goldman blew away the average analyst estimate of US$3.29 a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

For the fiscal quarter, Goldman was the world's top arranger of mergers and IPOs.

- REUTERS