The Economist - Government Sachs

(from the economist print edition)

TO THE survivors, the spoils. That is the cry going up at Goldman Sachs after it chalked up recession-defying—nay, record-breaking—quarterly profits on July 14th. Minting more than $3 billion in three months, so soon after its own near-death experience in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ demise, will enhance Goldman’s reputation as Wall Street’s overachiever. But it will also strike some as obscene given the scale of public support needed to keep the firm and its peers from buckling last year.

The first half of 2009 was fertile territory for investment bankers as markets rebounded and companies (not least banks themselves) rushed to raise debt and equity. But none of the banks due to report after The Economist went to press, not even a resurgent JPMorgan Chase, was expected to come close to Goldman’s blowout performance. Having incurred smaller losses than rivals, it is still prepared to deploy risk capital where others fear to tread.