Goldman Sachs ends the week with a new complication: a fresh downgrade arrived just as the dust was settling from last week's sharp pullback, and Q2 results are now less than two weeks away.
The analyst picture has shifted meaningfully since Tuesday's note. Oppenheimer's Chris Kotowski moved to Underperform from Perform on June 30 — the first outright bear call among recent actions and a contrast to the target-raising mood that dominated the prior week. Morgan Stanley's Betsy Graseck lifted her target to $1,099 from $1,021 on June 29 while holding Equal-Weight, keeping her squarely in the cautious camp. That leaves a split: Wells Fargo remains the lone bull with a $1,195 target and Overweight, but the consensus is still anchored well below the current $1,011 price, with the mean sitting around the low $1,000s. Most of the Street is either neutral or now turning more cautious. Bulls rest their case on M&A momentum and expanding wealth management revenues; bears point to FICC trading risk, valuation, and the broader macro sensitivity that the Oppenheimer downgrade flags explicitly.
Positioning tells a more constructive story than the analyst desk. Options traders remain notably call-skewed, with the put/call ratio at 0.85 — more than 1.4 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.93. That is the most bullish options posture of the past year, a sharp reversal from mid-June when the PCR was running near 0.99. Short interest, meanwhile, has dropped sharply over the week: SI as a percentage of the free float fell roughly 8.7% week-on-week to 2.2%, a low level that carries little structural short pressure. Borrow cost has risen 76% on the week to 0.40% — notable in direction but still exceptionally cheap in absolute terms. Availability remains enormous at well over 6,000% of short interest, meaning the lending pool is nowhere near constrained. The borrow market is loose, and options are skewed to calls: positioning looks more bullish than fearful.
The price itself tells a messier story, and last week's stock report is worth anchoring to here. GS hit an all-time high above $1,096 intraday before the quarter-end rebalance hit the whole financials complex. The stock closed Monday at $1,011, down 7.6% on the week and now roughly 8% below that record. Morgan Stanley fell 7.5% on the week and Evercore dropped 6.9%, while Jefferies extended its idiosyncratic slide to around 17% weekly — suggesting the broad sector compression remains the dominant force rather than GS-specific selling. The PE multiple has eased back toward 17.3x after its expansion above 18x, and price-to-book has pulled to roughly 2.8x. Both are still up meaningfully over 30 days, reflecting how far the stock has moved year-to-date even after this week's giveback.
On the earnings front, GS has been relatively muted in recent prints. The Q1 release on April 13 produced barely any first-day move — less than 0.2% — before a 3.7% gain over the following five sessions. The April 29 event (which appears to be an updated filing rather than a separate release) likewise saw a negligible day-one reaction. With Q2 results scheduled for July 14, the stock enters that print down sharply from its high but with call-skewed options and a borrow market that offers no squeeze angle.
The Oppenheimer downgrade, combined with a consensus that remains structurally below the price, means July 14 is less about whether GS can report a strong number and more about whether the revenue mix — particularly FICC and advisory — can justify where the multiple has reset after this year's rally.
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