These were marked in particular by a sharp decline in its consulting business, with revenues in this segment down by a quarter.
 
Goldman is also withdrawing from its retail banking business, which ultimately failed to take off. This quarter, it took a $504 million writedown on GreenSky, which it acquired two years ago.
 
This retreat is a major blow for David Solomon, the instigator of this retail banking push, who has been at the helm of the institution since late 2018 and in the hot seat for some time.
 
Solomon will find it all the more difficult to justify his failure, given that Goldman's main rivals - JPMorgan and Bank of America - are posting record results thanks to their universal banking activities, which have been strongly supported by the rise in interest rates.
 
For the past fifteen years, Goldman's stock has been trading in a well-defined range between x8 and x12 earnings. The stock is currently trading at this ceiling level: if history is any guide, a correction could soon be underway.
 
Earnings per share soared during the pandemic - doubling dramatically - but this was due to a series of downsizings and a market context that was simply bubbly.
 
Earnings per share are gradually returning to their ten-year average of $5-$6 per quarter, or $20-$25 per year. 
 
The number of shares outstanding has been reduced by a quarter in fifteen years. However, net of stock option remuneration which has recently reached outrageous levels, share buy-backs have been reduced to three times nothing during Solomon's tenure. 
 
Rather than wasting resources on a failed push into retail banking, it would have made more sense to go all out on share buy-backs when the stock was languishing at its x8 earnings valuation floor.