NEW YORK — Wall Street isn’t used to being underwhelmed by Goldman Sachs.
But even the powerhouse investment bank, which usually posts stellar results that leave its rivals in the dust, wasn’t immune to the rocky financial markets at the end of last year.
The bank’s net income for the last three months of the year fell 58 percent from a year earlier because of lower investment banking fees. The results beat Wall Street expectations but put Goldman in line with what it would consider ordinary banks.
In the last three months of the year, fear about the European debt crisis made the stock and bond markets volatile, and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers and acquisitions and public offerings of stock.
Goldman’s investment banking business took in 43 percent less in the fourth quarter than a year earlier. That was about the same as at Citigroup, Goldman’s much weaker competitor, where fees declined 45 percent. JPMorgan Chase reported a smaller decline of 39 percent.
In the third quarter last year, Goldman had lost money for only the second time since it went public in 1999.
“Goldman is best in breed,” said Keith Davis, an analyst at the investment firm Farr, Miller & Washington LLC and a Goldman shareholder. “But even they are being careful in seeking out profits because of the uncertainty out there.”
The investment bank said Wednesday that it made $1 billion, or $1.84 per share, from October through December. The results beat the estimate of $1.28 per share from analysts surveyed by FactSet, a provider of financial data.
