Everything's Coming Up Goldman (But Not Quite Roses)

Yesterday, Goldman Sachs announced that it made $1.8 billion during the first quarter, beating analysts' estimates and causing many industry onlookers to pat the golden child of investment banking on the back, sticking another few stars at the top of its earnings statement and saying it could be a good sign of things to come when Goldman’s competitors report their first-quarter figures in the coming week.

However, today, more than a few analysts, including these dudes in an interview with CNBC, pointed out that despite making a relative killing in fixed income trading (the bond markets bounced back in the first quarter and Goldman, known for its aggressive trading tactics, took advantage) its advisory and asset management business took severe hits (due to desert-dry deal markets), and those businesses aren’t going to look much better in the next few months. For Goldman's competitors, which are usually running a few steps behind in every banking service line, this means the bad will be worse and the good won't be as good—that is, their advisory and asset management units will likely report worse losses than Goldman, and their trading units won't report nearly as strong of gains.

To boot, Goldman (and its fellow financial firms) have already run into some rather ornery retail sales numbers, which sent Goldman's stock price south by more than 11 percent today.

The bank did make one nice score in the past 24 hours, though. Before its stock (and the overall market) slid, it received a nice price for 40.65 million of its common shares, which brought in a cool $5 billion, giving it half of the $10 billion in TARP money that it intends to give back to the U.S. government if the government’s in a receiving mood.