Driven by strong investment banking, equity offerings and debt underwriting results, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs reported quarterly earnings and revenues on Wednesday that far exceeded Wall Street's expectations.
Earnings excluding items jumped to $5.60 per share from $1.84 a share in the year-earlier period, with net revenues improving to $9.24 billion from $6.05 billion a year ago. The bank saw net earnings of $2.89 billion in the quarter, with an annualized return on equity of 16.5 percent
Wall Street had expected Goldman Sachs to report earnings excluding items of $3.78 a share on $7.91 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Goldman is the second bank to report better than expected earnings results in spite of the widespread uncertainty that dogged the global economy last year. Earlier, JPMorgan Chase also beat analysts' estimates amid a trading scandal that cost the bank $6.2 billion.