The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) Announces Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $3.74 EPS

The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The investment management company reported $11.95 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.21 by $3.74, Briefing.com reports. The firm had revenue of $13.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.36 billion. The Goldman Sachs Group had a net margin of 9.89% and a return on equity of 11.39%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $5.48 EPS.

The Goldman Sachs Group Stock Performance

Shares of GS stock opened at $612.17 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $585.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $528.13. The stock has a market cap of $192.17 billion, a PE ratio of 17.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.32. The Goldman Sachs Group has a 12 month low of $372.07 and a 12 month high of $616.84.

The Goldman Sachs Group Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be issued a $3.00 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 28th. This represents a $12.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.96%. The Goldman Sachs Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 35.21%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director David A. Viniar sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $612.08, for a total value of $3,060,400.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 608,425 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $372,404,774. This represents a 0.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Sheara J. Fredman sold 2,974 shares of The Goldman Sachs Group stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $594.51, for a total value of $1,768,072.74. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,489 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,046,795.39. This represents a 25.94 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 20,940 shares of company stock worth $12,656,179 in the last three months. 0.57% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Citigroup boosted their price objective on The Goldman Sachs Group from $485.00 to $585.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $686.00 to $690.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. HSBC lowered shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $569.00 to $608.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 26th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $600.00 to $680.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on The Goldman Sachs Group from $736.00 to $782.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $589.19.

About The Goldman Sachs Group

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, a financial institution, provides a range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management, and Platform Solutions segments. The Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as secured lending, through structured credit and asset-backed lending and involved in financing under securities to resale agreements.