Thanks to good business on the stock markets and lower taxes, the US investment bank goldman sachs earned significantly more in 2018.
The bottom line was a net profit of nearly 10 billion U.S. Dollars (8.8 billion euros), up 168 percent from the previous year, according to goldman sachs in new york. Earnings grew by twelve percent to just under 37 billion dollars.
In the fourth quarter, the bank made a net profit attributable to shareholders of 2.3 billion dollars, while earnings were a good eight billion dollars.
The results clearly exceeded the expectations of wall street. The share price rose sharply in early U.S. Trading and was up by a good three percent.
Earlier, the bank of america had already announced a strong jump in profits. The surplus rose last year by about 60 percent to almost 27 billion dollars (23.7 billion euros), as the money house in charlotte in the U.S. State of north carolina announced. Earnings increased by a good four percent to 91 billion dollars.
On monday and tuesday, u.S. Industry leader jpmorgan chase and rivals citigroup and wells fargo also reported annual profits in the double-digit billions of dollars. The U.S. Financial sector benefited from lower taxes last year due to the trump administration’s tax cuts, but banks’ businesses also ran smoothly in other respects.
The five institutions bank of america, citigroup, goldman sachs, jpmorgan and wells fargo alone earned a combined total of nearly $110 billion in 2018. This figure once again clearly shows how far the U.S. Banks are ahead of their international competitors, with only a few exceptions. At present, only the british HSBC, with its strong foothold in asia, can keep pace with the americans.
The comparison is painful for deutsche bank, which was at least within striking distance of most u.S. Banks before the financial crisis. At the biggest german bank, analysts currently expect an average surplus of just 400 million euros – that’s how much money jpmorgan earned last year in just five working days