Goldman Sachs posted its best quarterly earnings ever today on record trading and banking results, despite expectations that were recently lowered amid fears that mortgage market woes and volatile stocks would hurt results.
The largest investment bank by market value said net profit increased to a record $3.20 billion in the three months ended Feburay, up from of $2.48 billion in the year-ago period.
After Wall Street firms delivered a third year of record profit in 2006, analysts cautioned the industry faced a more difficult environment marked by worries about economic growth.
Those fears were fanned last month when a slump in Chinese stocks triggered a sell off worldwide.
Meanwhile subprime lenders have been going under as defaults on loans to people with weak credit rise and as financiers, including Goldman, cut off funds.
However, instead of reporting a decline in profit today, following weeks of uncertainty about the outlook of financial markets, Goldman reported net revenue up 22% to a record $12.73 billion.
