Goldman Sachs Takes Over as Dow's Poorest Performer

Banking, finance, and taxes

Published: September 29, 2018 8:25 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 5:08 pm

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) shouldered aside its competitors to assume the role of the worst-performing Dow Jones industrials stock for the year to date. The big bank’s stock dropped 4.7% last week, and shares are down 12% for the year to date.

The second-worst Dow stock so far this year is 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM), which is down 10.5%. That is followed by DowDuPont Inc. (NYSE: DWDP), down 9.7%, then Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), down 9.41%, and Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), down 4.9%. Eleven of the 30 Dow stocks have traded lower for 2018.

The blue-chip index dropped 285.19 points last week to close at 26,458.31, down about 1.1% compared to the previous Friday’s close. At the end of the third quarter, the Dow is up 9.4%, better than the S&P 500 (up 7.4%) and the Nasdaq Composite (up 7.2%). For the year to date, the index is up 6.6%, trailing both the S&P 500 (up 8.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (up 14.8%).

Friday was the Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s last day on the job. Monday is David Solomon’s first day as chief executive officer, and in January he also will assume Blankfein’s role as chair of the board. One of Solomon’s first issues will be to turn around the bank’s trading desk. Low volatility and low interest rates have weighed on revenues as customers directed investments at index funds and other passive investments.

The bank also launched its consumer bank, Marcus, in the United Kingdom last week. The bank will begin by accepting online-only deposits to savings accounts paying 1.5% interest. Marcus was rolled out in the United States in 2016 and currently claims 1.5 million customers with some $23.2 billion in deposits and $3.1 billion in loans outstanding at the end of June this year.

Goldman and other big banks are having a rough year. While the S&P 500 index is up nearly 9%, the capital markets sector is down by about 3.4%. Goldman’s performance has been much worse. The bank will report third-quarter results on October 16, and analysts are expecting earnings per share of $5.40 on revenue of $8.44 billion.

The bank’s stock closed at $224.24 on Friday, down about 1.5% for the day in a 52-week range of $218.89 to $275.31. The 12-month consensus price target on the stock is $274.68, and the forward price-to-earnings ratio is 8.87.

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