The CEO of Goldman Sachs has (mostly) hung up his cans. His colleagues hope that other noise will now die down too – and they think there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

Should we take Vivek Ramaswamy literally or seriously?

The manner of the campaign against chief executive David Solomon risks causing the lasting damage that his internal opponents presumably wish to avoid.

Goldman Sachs is losing a key executive in the very business it is relying on to turn the firm's fortunes around.

It was ultra-competitive at the top of the M&A league tables in the review period. Goldman Sachs wins the award for Asia’s best bank for advisory this year because it was there on most of the big mergers and acquisitions. The bank advised on 76 deals in Asia Pacific in the 12 months to the end of March 2023, worth a total of $181.9 billion, according to Dealogic, for a 16.87% share of the market.

The volume of completed M&A deals involving a North American buyer or target was steeply down in the awards period this year, with a 41% drop to just under $2 trillion. But in volatile times activity concentrates on the very best franchises, and this year demonstrated that well. For increasing its market share and strengthening its already dominant position, Goldman Sachs is North America’s best bank for advisory.

The tokenization of real-world assets is spreading fast, requiring the leaders of traditional finance to respond.

The past year posed extraordinary financing challenges for the world’s corporates. However, the political and economic conditions they faced also created an opportunity for creative banks to thrive.

The two chief executives should be on the undercard for the Musk/Zuckerberg cage fight.

Veteran banker Tom Montag is to join the board of Goldman Sachs in a bid to bolster support for embattled chief executive David Solomon. Weak second quarter earnings could make this task harder.

Social bonds need to prove they have impact.

Interest rate risk management has been complicated by the fall in yields after the US bailout of SVB’s depositors. Clients may feel that hedging chiefly benefits Wall Street dealers rather than themselves.

The notion that different businesses can produce healthy results by being under the same roof underpins Goldman Sachs’ diversification strategy. After failing to make that work at the first time of asking, its second attempt looks more derivative – but is perhaps likelier to succeed.

Some of Goldman’s top brass had an easier time of it than others at its latest investor day.

Goldman Sachs likes to mix it up when it comes to choosing peer banks for market share comparisons.

Commodity trading could deliver further hefty profits for banks, led by Goldman Sachs, but there are multiple risks as well as opportunities for dealers.

For the past few years, Goldman Sachs has dangled the promise of something new – a diversification in its business mix that would give shareholders a reason to finally re-rate the stock. But while the firm still has the glint of Goldman on the surface, disappointing earnings are revealing something less valuable underneath. Can its second investor day now fix the legacy of the first?

The UK broadcaster’s chair Richard Sharp is familiar with accusations of conflicts of interest from his time at Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs might wonder if the time is coming to rebrand from being Wall Street’s Bank of Dave (Solomon).

This year has seen banks report markdowns on leveraged finance commitments and related exposures, something that is hardly surprising given what has happened to yields. But even with syndicates struggling to offload some high-profile big deals, the troubles seem oddly muted so far.

David Solomon is having to field some scepticism as he changes Goldman Sachs’s approach to its loss-making consumer banking operation and restructures the firm. But nothing that has been developed is going to waste, and recognising that a business might sit better elsewhere is simply good sense.

Kotak Investment Advisors, the special situations arm of Kotak Mahindra, could have $9 billion under management by early next year. It is led by Srini Sriniwasan, who has applied skills learned at Goldman Sachs to develop the business to where it is today.

If you want to get ahead in investment banking it is time to hit the beach.

Wall Street’s junior human capital resources may not appreciate that there is now a bear market for their output, and that could spell tough times ahead.

If Rishi Sunak prevails in the race to be the UK’s prime minister, then Goldman Sachs will still have one alumnus as head of a leading European economy, even if Mario Draghi steps down from leading Italy.

Trading divisions at banks aren’t just offsetting slumping deal fees, they are also becoming more efficient. They could drive an upgrade in equity valuations.

Goldman Sachs had a knockout year in Africa. The firm has invested heavily in the region, with a clear focus on a few core markets, notably South Africa, where it has moved to a larger office in Johannesburg and added foreign-exchange and fixed-income products that target corporate and institutional investors. In 2019, it joined forces with Investec to provide domestic equity trading services. A year later, it secured a licence to trade futures from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

M&A in Africa last year was the classic one-trick pony, in that all the action took place in a single market, South Africa. Despite that, the competition for this award was fierce. It came down to a straight fight between Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with the former walking away with the prize in yet another impressive year.

The busiest 12 months ever in M&A fit perfectly with the investments Goldman Sachs has been making in its advisory business.

The businesses for which Goldman Sachs is most renowned dominated investment banking last year – but so much else is going on. The firm is enjoying the pay-off from a long effort to expand middle-market coverage and has successfully built a transaction banking platform from scratch that it can now scale up.