Watch Out For Goldman

It was a curtain call of sorts for Goldman Sachs GS CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein, who announced his replacement this morning as the company he’s run for the past 12 years easily beat earnings and revenue projections in its Q2 report. Earnings of $5.98 per share was well beyond the $4.67 in the Zacks consensus, and even further ahead of the year-ago quarter’s $3.95 per share.

Revenues of $9.4 billion surpassed the $8.7 billion we had been expecting, and way ahead of last year’s $7.9 billion for Q2. Of course, like most financial institutions that have reported results so far, rising interest rates are fueling the company’s top line, but even still these are the highest revenues Goldman has seen in the past 9 years. Revenues in its Investment Banking — of which Goldman Sachs is still considered the gold standard — was the third highest ever for the firm, on strong financial advisory and underwriting.

Blankfein’s tenure was an extraordinary one, which took him through the fallout of mortgage-backed securities that took investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers down and led to a globally-felt Great Recession. Only Blankfein and JPMorgan’s JPM Jamie Dimon had remained as captains of their institutions to present day. And although the 63-year-old Blankfein told CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin that his health was fine, this announcement comes somewhat abruptly, and his replacement, David Solomon, will assume CEO duties as of October 1st.

Solomon is being promoted from his current position as COO of the company, which he has held the past year and a half. Prior to this, and going back nearly as far as Blankfein’s leadership role at the firm, Solomon was at the helm of the Investment Banking division. He is also a music producer in the EDM genre (if you don’t know what EDM is, ask your kids), although when he takes over as CEO of the most respected investment banking firm on Wall Street, he might want to focus on dropping the beat every quarterly earnings statement rather than on the dance floor.

For more on GS’s earnings, click here.

Elsewhere, healthcare products giant Johnson & Johnson JNJ has also outperformed expectations on both top and bottom lines: earnings of $2.10 per share on quarterly sales of $20.8 billion outpaced the $2.06 and $20.2 billion estimates, respectively, although trimming full-year guidance initially hampered pre-market trading. The company raised the bottom end while lowering on the top for both revenues and earnings for 2018, which sent the stock into the red. It has subsequently rebounded into positive territory ahead of the opening bell. For more on JNJ’s earnings, click here.

Also, UnitedHealthcare UNH beat earnings expectations while coming in-line on sales: $3.14 per share amounted to an 11-cent beat on $56.1 billion in revenues. This is nothing new for the healthcare provider, which has beat on the bottom line every quarter going back to 2014 or farther, though its Q2 results is up an impressive 28% year over year. UNH also raised guidance for full-year 2018, to a range of $11.80 - 12.05 per share from $11.70 - 11.95 originally expected. Shares are down more than 1% in the pre-market, however. For more on UNH’s earnings, click here.

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