00:00 Speaker A
as you think about what they’re kind of classifying right now and what they’re, what they’re looking towards in this environment to really kind of pull the levers of their business that would, would best suit navigating what some of the other bank CEOs have talked about in foreseeable or considerable turbulence were the words that Jamie Diamond used when they reported earnings. How is Goldman positioned differently to navigate if they don’t lean into such a heavy consumer product focus and instead rest on some of their laurels such as trading, such as wealth management even and, and how can that continue to kind of buoy the ship in this near term?
01:46 Speaker B
Well, I think historically, you know, that’s been their strength so it’s been, you know, trading, investment banking, sales and trading, you know, all those things and that’s, you know, that’s been their strength and I think they do it better than most everybody else and I think that they’ll be fine. I think the issue is sort of where the economy is going to go and things have obviously changed a lot in the last, you know, 30 days or so or last 20 days or maybe the last two hours. Um, but I think these are, you know, these are the types of companies, you know, Goldman is a good example of a company that’s gonna, that will adapt. I don’t know exactly how, but you know, I’ve adapted to the business that I’m in, that has changed over the years and they’ll do the same. And I think that, you know, recessions are not bad for them, recoveries aren’t bad for them, if they manage it right. So I think you’re, you know, you get back to sort of what do you want to buy in this environment? You know, you buy well-run companies and let them figure it out and let them do the hard work to get to the other side.
04:16 Speaker A
Yeah.
04:17 Speaker C
And just some context for our audience, we’ve been reporting on how a growth area for Goldman moving forward is their wealth management business executives have been pointing to that as a growth area over the past several quarters. I do want to point out though something that David, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs CEO said here, saying that we are entering the second corner with a markedly different operating environment than earlier this year, that came in the statement this morning. Uh, what do you make of him avoiding the big T word there? And instead talking about this as just a markedly different environment?
05:33 Speaker B
Well, I guess it’s, you know, it may be, you know, the politically correct thing to do, but I think it’s, you know, it’s more than tariffs, it’s, you know, it’s what’s gonna happen to the employ, to the, you know, labor pool in the United States. What’s gonna happen to the M&A activity that he’s gonna see or be allowed to do, let’s say in the banking industry or all the other industries that are sort of being deregulated. Uh, so there’s a lot of other things happening and that, that are unrelated to tariffs. Tariffs seems to be the thing that everybody’s talking about now. Um, but, you know, I think the issue now is, you know, things are a lot different. So the question is, how is, you know, how are you going to adapt to that? So, I, I’m not, you know, I’m not trying to be, you know, the guy that thinks, you know, everything’s going to be great, but I think the companies will adapt and they’ll adjust. And I think our job as PMs and as analysts is to try to figure out which companies are going to be willing to do that and make the adjustments and hang on and see what happens.