Goldman Sachs 2Q earns fall but beats expectations

Goldman did not break down how much revenue the business brought in, though it has one of the largest commodity operations on Wall Street. The increase in commodity's risk also was pinned on market volatility and activity during the three months ended May 30.

The firm also benefited from a $725 million gain during the quarter from its own investments, including a $214 million gain from its stake in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Revenue for all of Goldman's trading and principal investments fell 16 percent to $5.59 billion.

Equity underwriting produced quarterly net revenue of $616 million, its second-best quarter and highest in eight years. Securities services--which includes the firm's prime brokerage business--posted record quarter revenue of $985 million.

Goldman reported that revenue from its investment banking business fell 2 percent to $1.69 billion. However, its financial advisory business posted revenue of $800 million--13 percent higher due to robust trading during the quarter.

Revenue from Goldman's asset management business surged 18 percent to $2.15 billion. Goldman said the increase was due to "market appreciation in equity assets' and inflows into money market and fixed-income products.

Goldman said it had $226.87 billion of capital as of May 30. That includes $44.82 billion in shareholder's equity.

Chief Financial Officer David Viniar would not speculate if any of Goldman's businesses hurt by the credit crisis--such as investment banking and underwriting of leveraged loans--would rebound sharply soon. He believes that the first few weeks of March marked what most people feel was the bottom for the credit markets.

"We're a ways through what has happened," he told reporters. "I think there is a lot of the crisis behind us, and that means there's less to come then there was."

Shares of the company fell $2.65 to $179.44 in trading Tuesday.