Goldman Sachs GS) kicked off the Q1 earnings season with a bang on Monday, with results from Citigroup C), JPMorgan JPM), Wells Fargo WFC), and BlackRock BLK) set to roll in tomorrow.
Setting the bar high, Goldman had one of the strongest quarters in its storied history while embarking on one of the most significant AI deployments in the banking sector.
This makes it a compelling case to consider buying Goldman’s stock on the dip, with GS up a resounding 75% over the last year, but trading 10% from its 52-week and all-time high of $984 a share, which it hit in January.
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Goldman’s Superb Q1 Results
Posting Q1 sales of $17.22 billion, Goldman’s top line expanded 14% year over year to the second-highest quarterly level in the firm’s history and comfortably surpassed estimates of $16.97 billion. The standout driver of the quarter was record equities trading revenue, which spiked 27% YoY to $5.33 billion.
Revenue from investment banking fees also stood out, spiking 48% to $2.84 billion, driven by a surge in M&A advisory activity and stronger equity underwriting. Additionally, Asset and Wealth Management segment revenue increased 10% to $4.08 billion. That said, there were some areas where Goldman’s performance lagged, including fixed income trading revenue falling 10% YoY to $4.01 billion, and credit loss provisions were up nearly 10%, more than double analyst expectations.
Still, Goldman posted its second-highest mark in quarterly net earnings as well at $5.63 billion, a 19% increase YoY. This translated into Goldman’s second-highest quarterly EPS of $17.55, beating expectations of $16.34 by 7% and spiking 24% from $14.12 per share in Q1 2025.
Notably, Goldman has now surpassed the Zacks EPS Consensus for 10 consecutive quarters, posting an average EPS surprise of 13.09% in its last four quarterly reports.
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Strategic AI Partnership With Anthropic
Goldman has been embedding Anthropic engineers inside the bank for months, co-developing autonomous AI agents based on Anthropic’s Claude models.
These agents are being built to automate complex, high-volume, rules-driven financial tasks such as trade and transaction accounting, regulatory compliance checks, client vetting and onboarding, and document-heavy workflows that require logical reasoning.
Goldman’s CIO Marco Argenti has repeatedly confirmed the collaboration, describing Claude as a “digital co-worker” capable of handling work that previously required large teams. The strategic partnership is signaling a shift in how Wall Street approaches back-office automation, with Goldman effectively using Anthropic’s models as a foundational intelligence layer for mission-critical operations that is likely to enhance its already stellar operational efficiency.
Monitoring Goldman's Valuation
Despite such an exhilarating rally over the last year, GS is trading at 15X forward earnings, which is roughly on par with its Zacks Financial-Investment Bank Industry average and still offers a noticeable discount to the benchmark S&P 500.
Like many of its investment banking peers, GS trades near the often preferred level of less than 2X forward sales with the S&P 500 at almost 5X.
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Bottom Line
Goldman Sachs just delivered one of the strongest quarters in its history and is positioning itself at the forefront of enterprise AI adoption through its deepening partnership with Anthropic. Together, this creates a compelling case for keeping Goldman’s stock in the portfolio, with GS currently landing a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Trading at a reasonable valuation, GS offers a respectable 1.98% annual dividend yield, and management reaffirmed confidence in long-term growth, citing strong client engagement and diversified business momentum. Furthermore, a buy rating could be on the way as EPS estimates for FY26 are likely to rise in the coming weeks and possibly for FY27 as well.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).