Higher investment gains boost Goldman profit

The Wall Street bank earned $1.95 billion, or 4.10 per share, in the three months ended June 30, up from $1.86 billion, or $3.70 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected Goldman to report earnings of $3.05 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Goldman's shares rose about 2 percent to $170.10 in premarket trading on Tuesday.

Goldman's net revenue in its investing and lending division jumped 46 percent to $2.07 billion. This included net gains of $1.25 billion from investments in equities.

The bank was also helped by better results in investment banking, where it ranked No. 1 in mergers-and-acquisitions, as well as equity underwriting, for the first half of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Investment banking revenue, which includes M&A, debt underwriting and stock underwriting, rose 15 percent to $1.78 billion.

Net revenue from fixed income, currency and commodity trading, known as FICC, fell 10 percent to $2.22 billion, mainly due to significantly lower net revenue in currencies.

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, on Tuesday reported an 8 percent decline in second-quarter profit as a pullback in trading of bonds and currencies by big institutions hit revenue in its securities trading business.

On Monday, Citigroup reported a 16 percent drop in trading revenue. The decline was less than Wall Street executives had forecast weeks earlier, because trading activity picked up in late-June.

(Reporting by Anil D'Silva in Bangalore and Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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