Pre-tax earnings fell by 20 per cent in Q1 to $2.719 billion, the Wall Street firm said. Net earnings, after taxes, were $2.182 billion, also falling by 20 per cent on a year before.

Assets under supervision at the investment management arm stood at $1.599 trillion, a rise of 7 per cent from the end of March 2018. There were long-term net asset flows of $20 billion in Q1 2019, up from $3 billion in the final quarter of last year and also up from $13 billion a year before.

Investment management revenues were $1.6 billion in Q1 2019, falling by 12 per cent year-on-year. Incentive fees ($58 million) fell particularly sharply, down by 73 per cent. Transaction revenues fell by 22 per cent, the firm said. 

Goldman Sachs’ cost-efficiency ratio was 66.6 per cent at the end of the quarter, widening from 64.1 per cent a year earlier. 

The firm’s Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, a standard international measure of a financial firm’s capital buffer, was 13.7 per cent in the first quarter.