Goldman Sachs kicked off the US earnings season with a bag of surprises after the US market closed on Monday. The earnings for the first quarter of 2009, released a day earlier than scheduled, were significantly better than consensus estimates, driven by gains in fixed income and commodities trading. And the simultaneously announced $5 billion public offering of common stock to repay bailout funding it received last year initially received a positive nod from the market.
However, the performance in the elusive month of December 2008, coupled with the aggressive size and pricing of the new issue, eventually dampened investor sentiment and the shares lost ground yesterday.
Goldman Sachs posted net revenues...