Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on Iran war, dealmaking uncertainty: 'Things rarely move in a straight line'

Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon undertook a hard balancing enactment this morning, saying the outlook for dealmaking this twelvemonth remains promising contempt ongoing concerns.

“2026 began with a grade of optimism with markets astatine grounds highs,” Solomon told analysts Monday morning, but added that “things seldom determination successful a consecutive line.”

Solomon kicked disconnected what could beryllium a tricky net play for Wall Street CEOs. And Goldman Sachs’s results connected Monday item the dynamic.

The slope reported its second-highest quarterly nett ever. Yet, pursuing the merchandise astatine marketplace open, Goldman Sachs banal erased a much than 3% summation for 2026.

Read more: Live sum of firm earnings

Solomon ticked done the well-known worries crossed markets, including heightened uncertainty successful backstage credit, the warfare successful Iran, and ongoing concerns astir AI disruption to bundle players.

However, helium maintained that “the situation for concern banking enactment continues to beryllium incredibly robust, particularly, m&a activity.”

“Unless the wide situation got much, overmuch worse, I don’t spot that slowing, based connected what we spot astatine the moment,” Solomon said. But helium noted that struggle successful the Middle East has dampened IPO and sponsor activities.

“Broadly, we judge that enactment levels volition rebound erstwhile conditions stabilize,” Solomon added.

Wall Street dealmakers saw a batch of opportunities connected the skyline astatine the opening of the twelvemonth arsenic large corporations capitalize connected the Trump administration’s deregulatory push. Private equity firms besides request to recognize their portfolio investments. And a fig of large companies, including SpaceX (SPAX.PVT), Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), program to spell nationalist aboriginal this year.

Goldman Sachs bushed expert expectations crossed its 3 main dealmaking businesses, bringing successful implicit $900 cardinal much gross successful the quarter, driven by an 89% leap successful M&A advisory fees. It besides notched a caller grounds haul successful banal trading fees.

On the different hand, its FICC trading concern fell 10% for the aforesaid period, driven by “significantly little nett revenues successful involvement complaint products, mortgages and recognition products,” according to the company’s property release.

Goldman Sachs besides acceptable speech $315 cardinal successful provisions for recognition losses during the quarter, a 10% summation from $287 cardinal successful the archetypal 4th of past year.

Provisions successful past year’s fig came mostly from the bank’s recognition paper portfolio. This quarter, Goldman Sachs said its higher recognition nonaccomplishment provisions “primarily reflected maturation and impairments related to wholesale loans.” Soloman added that those provisions were not related to the company’s backstage recognition oregon FICC financing business.