Did Goldman Sachs have a great year?

There are no bigger goniffs than the folks working on Wall St, especially Goldman Slacks!

I'm a not particularly impressed with their haul this year. Goldman made a total net income of $17 billion split amongst their approx 400 partners. Elon Musk's net worth this year alone went up approx $200 billion.

Suck it Goldman.

Goldman Sachs gets rich making the rich richer

The bank's earnings reflect an economy where access to capital, regular markets, private markets, and high-end financial services means everything

By Catherine Baab. Quartz Media

Updated 5 hours ago

Goldman Sachs released results for its fourth quarter of 2025 on Thursday, plus its full-year 2025 results — and what the numbers show is a theme with big banks’ earnings generally. When wealth has places to go, wealth tends to compound, especially for those who already have it.

Riches beget riches

For the full year, the Wall Street giant reported net revenue of $58.3 billion and net earnings of $17.2 billion. Earnings per share clocked in at $51.32. Much of that momentum flowed from Goldman’s asset and wealth management business. Assets under supervision climbed to a staggering $3.61 trillion, up $469 billion from a year earlier. That jump in particular shows how rising (if volatile) markets and continued inflows function to grow existing wealth. Alongside the jump, private banking and lending revenues hit record levels, as high-net-worth clients borrowed against expanding portfolios and reinvested the money in yet more opportunities.

Shareholders benefited just as clearly from these same dynamics. Like other major Wall Street banks, Goldman returned tens of billions to investors throughout 2025 — for its part, some $12.4 billion in buybacks and $4.4 billion in dividends. It's a trend that's likely to continue from here, too. Looking to the first quarter of 2026, Goldman raised its quarterly dividend 12.5% to $4.50 per share, while the investor presentation likewise trumpets rapidly rising book value.

Bringing the phenomenon even more into focus, Goldman highlighted how, since its 2019 investor day, total shareholder returns have topped 340%. This harkens back to CEO David Solomon’s announcement that the firm would look to become, essentially, a better and more transparent bet for investors — breaking out segment reporting, and being clearer in its approach to creating shareholder wealth. The 2025 results highlight the success of those initiatives, at least from the wealth-building perspective. Over the same time period, the S&P 500 has returned around 130%, inclusive of dividends. For a company of Goldman’s size to so vastly outperform the index return is a major feat.

Highlighting a stark reality

While, early in the pandemic, the poorest American households saw significant financial gains through a combination of federal government programs aimed at securing ordinary Americans against the economic hardship posed by the pandemic, now, years out, that phenomenon has long since lapsed. The rich are getting richer—and the downward-pointing line of the “K-shaped economy” only continues to point down.

In this sense, Goldman's results don't just describe a strong year — or a multiyear winning streak — for one big bank. They reflect an economy where access to capital, regular markets, private markets, and high-end financial services means everything, and where the benefits of growth flow readily, so long as you’re already positioned to capture them.