Gillian Tan, Columnist

Goldman Blemishes Shouldn't Overshadow Its Bright Spots

Fixed-income trading is still a big drag, but its other businesses are picking up the slack.

January 17, 2018 at 2:59 PM UTC

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

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Some bankers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. must be feeling the winter chill more than others.

The Lloyd Blankfein-led bank delivered fourth-quarter results on Wednesday that showed it hasn't been able to stop the bleeding within its fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) unit. Initial efforts to do so -- including hiring new staff and refreshing its client mix in a bid to capture more market share -- are yet to bear out, leading to the worst quarter for such trading since the financial crisis. Commodities trading, to which the bank remains committed (but should consider trimming), remains a drag.