An advance guard of the U.S. banking segment has reported for the ending quarter of 2024 ahead of the corporate earnings season's major chapters, which are still coming in and are supposed to make an overall positive contribution. But what's interesting is, the variety of lending institutions performed a solid organic growth in terms of both revenue and pure income, while the essentially investment giants like Goldman Sachs (GS) and BlackRock (BLK) grew up on a much firmer foundation. There is an impression that well-organised asset management, based on proper contextual ad hoc and mid-term stock transactions, is still producing enhanced results when compared to the returns of somewhat shabby loan portfolios at still quite heavy interest rates.

A temporary increase in Blackrock market value was up to 6.5% at its highest intraday point on January 15, following its record ever $11.93 of equity per share (EPS) on an also absolutely highest number of $5.68 billion in quarterly sales. Blackrock's three-month achievements provided a 23.5% annual boost in EPS vs nearly14% expected at EPS of $11.06 per share, which was supposed in analyst pool projections in reputable news outlets like Bloomberg and Reuters. Many investment houses quickly adjusted their price target areas for Blackrock shares, while also keeping Outperform ratings on the stock. As an example, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) revised its price goal for Blackrock to $1,180, citing the investment bank's diversified inflows and global expansion growth initiatives which made the company favorably positioning in the eyes of analysts and investors alike. Blackrock is currently traded around $1000 per share.

However, the Goldman Sachs (GS) effect even surpassed the previous case, with an emergence of totally new peaks above $625 on GS charts, where the shares of this widely recognized investment giant had never been before. The weekly gain was more than 11.5% from $560 per share at the closing price on January 10. Goldman Sachs provided last quarter's EPS at $11.95 per share, beating a $8.12 consensus forecast, with its revenue achieving as high as $13.87 billion vs $12.15 billion previously estimated on average. This means that GS net revenues are up 7% YoY but its adjusted income soared by 54%, so that the firm maintains its clear leadership in global investment banking, including merge and acquisition advisory and wealth management services. Such a strong kind of resilience revived inner projections for EPS of $47.50 for fiscal year 2025 and $52.50 for fiscal year 2026. Isn't this a ready-made reason for targets above $650, or even $700 per share in the coming months, or at least before the end of 2025? By the way, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon was freshly rewarded by an $80 million stock bonus to stay at the helm for another 5 years, and John Waldron, a chief operating officer who is seen by many as a successor to Solomon, who is 63 now, was also awarded with his retention bonus of the same $80 million in restricted stock. However, the huge crowd of Goldman Sachs investors on Wall Street is hardly feeling offended or sad either, given the stock's crazy growth pace by the banking segment's standards.

The very fact that a cycle of lower borrowing rates has started in 2024 on both sides of the pond is helping the banking environment tremendously, which may in turn expand into a real business so soon, but the process may be happening more slowly than many Wall Street inhabitants would like to see due to a pause in the dovish shift by the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators. Wells Fargo (WFC), which also has an increasingly advanced investment focus among its recovering lending business, gained more than 8% since last week's earnings' report, coming very close to all-time peaks around $78 per share. Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) also broke their previous price records, but gained within 5% and 7%, while the Bank of America (BAC) failed to add more than 2% for the reporting week, while its quarterly profits and sales were high but still within its previous lofty standards. The smaller part of investment business versus the credit component for the last three banks mentioned above seems like a reasonable justification for this tendency.