Larry Berman CFA, CMT, CTA Goldman Sachs GS-N SELL Apr 14, 2025

The analyst who downgraded GS is saying nothing new, including a delay in the M&A cycle. The IPO market will likely emerge in second-half 2025. Also consider is defaults will rise? Lending growth slow or reverse? The overall economy slow down?

The US about to see a wave of mergers and IPOs and GS will benefit from that.

It reports Monday. As an investment bank, its business can be episodic, but he expects the CEO to deliver on the top and bottom lines--the top because of trading (their forte) and bottom because of, well, firing a bunch of people that they've been doing.

A buy at 11.8X earnings.

Of the big banks, they are the most levered to investment banking, including IPOs. He bought it expecting an uptick in IPOs under Trump, but his tariffs have temporarily derailed that. The IPO revival should happen if tariffs don't return. This pulled back hard since mid-February because of those tariffs, down 35%.

Is perfectly positioned for the tailwinds under the Trump presidency. After April's tariffs, corporate boards have been sitting and waiting, reluctant to do deals, but a strong capital market will eventually happen. Pays a good dividend and are very well-capitalized.

Delivered a blow out quarter, top and bottom lines, thanks to their red-hot global banking and markets division. Investment banking is up 26% YOY. The return of M&A is a key driver. 

The capital markets banks are all performing really well. That tells you something about the rest of the market; if investors are focusing on these banks, then they must have a view that lots of deals will be done and that capital markets provide a good opportunity. He'd buy more.

He's not a good trader. To paraphrase: "There are bull markets and bear markets, but at the end GS wins." We've seen that this quarter with respect to their trading profits. It's been a great way to play capital markets forever, and all the banks' capital markets divisions are doing well.