Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday that it swung to a profit in the third quarter, a strong comeback from a year ago, when it reported a rare quarterly loss in the wake of losses in its private equity portfolio and broader global economic issues.
For the quarter, the firm reported net earnings applicable to common shareholders of $1.46 billion, or $2.85 a share, compared with a loss of $428 million, or 84 cents a share, in the quarter a year earlier.
Goldman's revenue more than doubled in the quarter, to $8.35 billion, from $3.59 billion in the year-ago period. The results exceeded the consensus of Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
“This quarter`s performance was generally solid in the context of a still challenging economic environment,†Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.
The quarter's better-than-expected performance is no doubt welcome news for Goldman, which has had a tough year as it has struggled against both economic challenges at home and abroad and new regulations that have reduced its profitability.
Goldman is not alone in feeling the pinch in profits, and this quarter its rivals were aided by revenue from the boom in mortgage refinancing, a corner of the market in which Goldman does not have a big presence.
Still, net revenue in Goldman's powerful fixed Income, currency and commodities unit came in at $2.22 billion, 28 percent higher than the third quarter of 2011. The company said this this increase reflected “significantly higher†revenues from trading in mortgages as well as a bump in revenue from trading items like currencies and interest rate products.
During the first half of the year the firm overall earned roughly $3 billion in profit, down 20 percent from the same period last year.
The results also included a nice bump in the firm's quarterly dividend, which the board recently voted to increase by 4 cents , to 50 cents a share.
