Goldman Sachs Q2 net up 77% to $1 bn

NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs' second-quarter profit climbed 77% to $1.09 billion from $613 million in the same period a year earlier. Earnings fell 38% if one-time costs are excluded from the 2010 results.

Under Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, 56, Goldman Sachs in the past five years has had its only loss as a publicly traded company, in the fourth quarter of 2008, and record earnings in 2009, when trading accounted for 72% of revenue. JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s investment bank last week reported a smaller-than-expected 17% decline in overall trading revenue from the first quarter, while the same business at Citigroup dropped 21%.

Goldman Sachs is "a trading-revenue firm more than anything and last quarter was weak," Matthew D. McCormick, a portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Inc. who helps manage about $4 billion, said before the results were released. "If they can't make it on trading revenues, where else are they going to go?"