Goldman reports $2.12 billion loss

Bloomberg

The loss of $4.97 a share in the three months ended Nov. 28 compared with net income of $3.22 billion, or $7.01, in the same period a year earlier, the New York-based company said yesterday in a statement. The average estimate of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for a loss of $3.73 per share.

Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and six deputies gave up bonuses this year after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression forced Goldman Sachs to convert to a bank-holding company and accept $10 billion from the U.S. government. The firm that set a Wall Street profit record in 2007 cut 10 percent of its employees last month as its stock plummeted 69 percent this year.

"They continue to pick up market share, but it's going to be volatile and you have to be able to stomach some risk,'' said William Fitzpatrick, an equity analyst at Optique Capital Management in Milwaukee, which oversees $1 billion and owns Goldman Sachs shares. Revenue is "going to be challenged for at least a 12- to 18-month period," he said.

Goldman Sachs and smaller rival Morgan Stanley, the only two of the biggest five U.S. securities firms to survive, changed into banks after investors lost confidence in companies that rely on debt-market funding.