A consensus of 15 Wall Street analysts projects Goldman Sachs will post a year-over-year decline in earnings when it announces results next week. The main drivers are expected to be weaker trading revenues in fixed income and currencies, where daily average trading volumes have fallen by roughly 12% compared with the prior quarter, coupled with only modest growth in asset-management fees. Industry data show Goldman’s loan-loss reserves have ticked higher, suggesting capital will be set aside against potential defaults and further pressuring earnings per share.

In a recent report, Bank of America Securities analyst Ebrahim Poonawala raised his rating on Goldman Sachs to Buy, noting a projected 20% rebound in investment banking revenue for fiscal 2026 and a return to normalized performance by fiscal 2027. He warns, however, that CEO David Solomon’s primary challenge remains tempering the bank’s historically wide swings in profitability. Goldman’s return on tangible common equity plunged from 17% in 2021 to 9% in 2023, underscoring the sensitivity of its earnings to capital markets activity and the importance of reducing quarterly variability to meet investor expectations.

Goldman Sachs once again led all banks in global M&A advisory for the second consecutive year, advising on transactions totaling approximately $1.48 trillion in deal value. Key mandates included advising on two of the year’s largest cross-border mergers, each exceeding $60 billion, as well as a slate of five strategic spin-offs valued between $15 billion and $25 billion. The firm increased its market share to 18.3%, up from 16.7% in 2024, according to Dealogic data, cementing its position at the center of high-stakes corporate activity.

Goldman Sachs research forecasts global spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure will reach $527 billion in 2026, up from $465 billion at the end of third-quarter 2025. The report highlights that this surge is being driven by hyperscale cloud providers and enterprise migration of machine-learning workloads. Goldman’s analysts argue that these trends support the case for broad AI-thematic strategies and have led to declining stock price correlations among leading AI platform names, suggesting investors are seeking differentiated exposure beyond the largest cloud operators.