The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) reported second quarter 2011 earnings per share of $1.85, significantly below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.29 per share. Coupled with global macroeconomic concerns, the results deteriorated driven by a decrease in revenue and poor performance in the Institutional Client Services division.
Further, the Investing and Lending division also recorded lower revenues. After reviewing the results, we are maintaining our Underperform recommendation on the shares.
Our six-month price target of $117.00 equates to about 9.3x our earnings estimate for 2011. Combined with the $0.35 per share dividend, the price target implies an expected negative total return of 8.4% over that period, which is consistent with our Underperform recommendation.
