What to Watch When Goldman Sachs Reports Wednesday

Banking, finance, and taxes

Published: January 15, 2019 12:40 pm

Last Updated: January 31, 2020 2:00 am

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter financial results before the markets open on Wednesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are $5.61 in earnings per share (EPS) and $7.78 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, the financial giant posted EPS of $5.68 on $7.83 billion in revenue.

In the third quarter, book value per common share has increased by 9% for the year to date to $197.33 and annualized return on equity was 13.7%, the highest nine-month level in nine years.

This investment house has found itself in the midst of international scandal and domestic investigations again, and new CEO David Solomon just doesn’t really seem to want to communicate to the public and investors as much as Lloyd Blankfein did. After a small gain of 6.4% in 2017, Goldman Sachs lost about 34% of its value in 2018. It is supposed to be the top investment bank for the wealthy and institutions, but the firm wants its Marcus online bank and finance play to move to the masses and younger clients.

Currently, Goldman Sachs has a consensus analyst price target of $231.35, implying upside of roughly 29% for the 2019 full year.

Goldman Sachs may be a great investment bank for the wealthy and for institutions, but expecting a gain of 29% in a single year, with its investigations and international woes being prominent, would imply that everything would have to run super-smoothly ahead at a time when volatility rules.

A few analysts weighed in on Goldman Sachs ahead of the report:

Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating and a $207 price target.
Barclays has an Equal Weight rating with a $247 price target.
Credit Suisse rates it as Outperform with a $250 price target.
Wells Fargo has an Outperform rating and a $235 price target.
Atlantic Securities has a Neutral rating.

Shares of Goldman Sachs were last seen trading at $179.45, in a 52-week range of $151.70 to $275.31.

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