Goldman Sachs delivered one of its strongest quarterly performances in recent memory, reporting first-quarter 2026 net revenues of $17.23 billion and net earnings of $5.63 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $17.55 surpassing the Wall Street consensus of $16.49 by a substantial margin.
The results, announced on Monday April 13, confirmed that the prolonged slowdown in dealmaking that defined much of 2024 and early 2025 has given way to a genuine revival in corporate transactions, with Goldman positioned at the centre of that shift.
Investment banking fees surged 48% year-over-year to $2.84 billion, driven by what the bank described as a significant increase in completed mergers and acquisitions volumes.
Advisory revenues alone jumped 89% compared to the first quarter of 2025, reflecting a wave of corporate activity in the technology and energy sectors that analysts attribute to a race to secure artificial intelligence infrastructure and energy security resources following the geopolitical disruptions of the opening months of 2026. The scale of that advisory bounce confirms the view held by Goldman’s own M&A leadership throughout late 2025 that a pent-up pipeline of boardroom decisions would eventually translate into transaction activity once financing conditions stabilised.
David Solomon, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, told analysts on the conference call: “We continue to see significant activity on the M&A front. We don’t see that slowing.” He acknowledged that “the level of uncertainty is higher” due to the US-Iran conflict, but framed client interest in large deals as undiminished, reflecting a corporate sector that has learned to compartmentalise geopolitical risk when strategic imperatives are strong enough to override short-term caution.
Goldman has now flagged completed deals as a positive earnings driver for three consecutive quarters, suggesting the revival is sustained rather than a single-quarter anomaly.
Equities trading set an all-time record for the bank, generating $5.33 billion in the quarter — a 27% increase year-over-year and the headline number that most impressed analysts on the buy side. Equities financing specifically rose 59%, as institutional clients leveraged existing positions to play a volatile market shaped by oil price swings, ceasefire speculation and the broader uncertainty created by the Middle East conflict. Goldman’s ability to generate record revenues from equity markets during a period of elevated geopolitical stress illustrates a structural advantage that the largest trading desks hold over smaller competitors: volatility, in both directions, tends to expand trading volumes and widen bid-ask spreads in ways that benefit firms with the balance sheet and the client relationships to capture that flow.
The one soft spot in the results was the fixed income, currencies and commodities division, where revenues fell 10% year-over-year to $4.01 billion.
FICC intermediation declined primarily due to lower revenues in interest rate products and mortgages, reflecting a rates environment that has become less directionally clear as markets weigh competing signals from inflation data, the Federal Reserve’s posture and the implications of oil price movements for the inflation outlook. The FICC decline was widely anticipated by analysts and did not materially alter the positive overall interpretation of the results.
Assets under supervision reached a record $3.65 trillion, representing 33 consecutive quarters of long-term fee-based net inflows — a streak that reflects the durability of Goldman’s wealth management expansion and the stickiness of its institutional client base even through periods of market disruption.
The completion of the Industry Ventures acquisition in the first quarter added $5 billion in long-term assets under supervision, with a second acquisition, Innovator Capital Management, closed in the second quarter. Solomon has consistently communicated a strategy of building the asset management business toward meaningful scale, and the $3.65 trillion figure marks a milestone in that journey.
Goldman returned $6.38 billion of capital to shareholders during the quarter, underscoring confidence in the financial trajectory and providing a direct cash signal to investors at a time when some peers have been more cautious about capital deployment. The annualised return on equity reached 19.8%, and the return on tangible equity came in at 21.3%, both figures that reflect the efficiency gains delivered through the “One Goldman Sachs” strategic restructuring programme implemented over the previous two years.
Analysts at Bank of America and Wells Fargo responded to the results by raising their Goldman Sachs price targets toward the $1,050 level, citing what they described as the bank’s peerless positioning in a reviving M&A environment. The consensus view is that Goldman’s relative strength in advisory, combined with a leadership position in equity underwriting, gives it disproportionate exposure to exactly the deal flow dynamics that are accelerating through 2026’s corporate calendar.
The broader context is also supportive. Goldman ranked first in both announced and completed M&A and equity and equity-related offerings globally in the first quarter, and second in leveraged lending and high-yield debt. That market share data is not incidental — it represents the tangible outcome of client relationships built through multiple cycles and the bank’s reputation for execution on the most complex cross-border transactions. Citi CEO Jane Fraser separately told analysts that banking fees were up 12% at her institution “amid a record first quarter in M&A,” confirming that the revival is a sector-wide phenomenon rather than a Goldman-specific story.
Looking forward, the sustainability of this momentum depends on whether the Iran situation resolves cleanly enough to prevent further energy price volatility from feeding back into corporate financing costs and buyer confidence. If peace talks produce a durable agreement in the coming weeks and oil retreats below $90 per barrel, the conditions for a continued acceleration in large-cap M&A activity are genuinely in place.
A ceasefire extension is currently under active discussion, and markets are pricing in a constructive outcome with increasing confidence — a backdrop that Goldman’s dealmakers will be watching with considerable interest as they manage a pipeline that Solomon has already described as robust.
