Goldman Sachs said its second-quarter profits doubled compared with last year, reflecting a sharp jump in the value of its own investments and increased demand from its clients for trading and investment banking.

高盛(Goldman Sachs)公布第二季度利润同比翻番，反映出高盛投资银行部门的价值大幅上升，同时其客户对交易和投行业务的需求有所增加。

The bank’s net income rose to $1.93bn in the three months to July, with revenues up 30 per cent year on year at $8.61bn. That equated to earnings of $3.70 a share, beating the $2.89 forecast by analysts.

高盛在截至7月的三个月里净利润增至19.3亿美元。营收则同比增长30%，达到86.1亿美元。按此计算，每股盈利达到3.70美元，高于分析师预测的2.89美元。

Goldman largely shrugged off the market volatility that rocked Wall Street for two weeks towards the end of last month, when Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, indicated that the central bank could roll back its bond-buying programme.

高盛基本上未受6月下半月冲击华尔街的市场波动的影响。引发此轮波动的导火线是，美联储(Federal Reserve)主席本•伯南克(Ben Bernanke)表示，美联储可能逐渐缩减债券购买规模。

The results from Goldman could add to an improving mood on Wall Street, although its shares traded lower in New York as analysts debated whether the earnings performance actually came from a sustainable rise in client activity. Its shares were down 1.83 per cent at $160.01 in early trading.

高盛的业绩有望推动华尔街的情绪进一步好转，尽管该行在纽约上市的股票价格下跌。分析师们在争论一个关键问题：高盛的亮丽利润表现是否真正源自客户活动的可持续增加？高盛股价早盘下跌1.83%，至160.01美元。

The bank’s annualised return on equity (ROE), a central measure of its ability to generate profits for shareholders, was 10.5 per cent in the second quarter. That is barely above its estimated 10 per cent cost of capital, and below the 30 per cent ROE it reported before the financial crisis. A large part of Goldman’s profits derived from its portfolio of investments and loans, where revenues jumped almost sevenfold to $1.42bn. Proprietary trading, or trading on a bank’s own account, is banned under the proposed Volcker rule, but longer-term investments are still allowed.

该行的年化股本回报率(ROE)——衡量其为股东创造盈利能力的核心标尺——在第二季度达到10.5%，比该行估算的10%的资金成本高不了多少，远低于该行在金融危机之前报告的30%上下的ROE水平。高盛的利润有很大一部分来自其投资和贷款资产组合，这一块的营收飙升近6倍，至14.2亿美元。根据拟议中的沃尔克规则(Volcker rule)，自营交易，即用银行自己的账户进行交易，将受到禁止，但较长期的投资仍是容许的。

Many analysts had forecast gains from the bank’s investments to amount to far less than $1bn, after the general fall in asset prices towards the end of the period.

许多分析师此前预测，该行投资的增值将远低于10亿美元，原因是资产价格在接近报告期结束的时候普遍下降。

“If you just looked at market movements during the quarter, you would not have expected them to generate that level of profits,” said Richard Staite, analyst at Atlantic Equities. He added that Harvey Schwartz, Goldman chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the gains were largely driven by “company-specific situations, where they decided to mark-up or sell their investments”.

“如果你只是看该季度期间的市场走势，你不会预料到它们会产生那么高的利润，”大西洋证券(Atlantic Equities)分析师理查德•斯代特(Richard Staite)表示。他补充称，高盛首席财务官哈维•施瓦茨(Harvey Schwartz)在电话会议中表示，投资增值的主要驱动因素是“公司的一些特定情况，即他们决定标高价格或出售他们的投资。”

Overall trading and investment banking activity surpassed the level of the same period last year, when the bank reported $962m of net income, but was slower than in the seasonally strong first quarter. During the market upheaval demand fell for products such as derivatives tied to interest rates and the mortgages Goldman offers to its wealth management clients.

总体交易和投行活动超出去年同期的水平（当时高盛报告净利润为9.62亿美元），但低于季节性强劲的第一季度。市场动荡期间，与利率和抵押贷款挂钩的衍生品等产品的需求下滑；高盛向其理财客户提供此类产品。

The strong earnings “was driven by these wide investment gains which may well not be sustainable,” said Mr Staite. “The only core business area which beat expectations was debt underwriting and even that just doesn’t look sustainable.”

强劲的盈利数据“是由这些大范围的投资增值驱动的，这很可能是不可持续的，”斯代特表示。“唯一超出预期的核心业务领域是债券承销，即便是那个领域看上去也根本不像是可持续的。”