Goldman Sachs earnings Q4 2018

Goldman Sachs is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings before the opening bell Wednesday.

Here’s what Wall Street expects:

• Earnings: $4.30 per share, a 24 percent decline from a year ago, according to Refinitiv.
• Revenue: $7.55 billion, a decline of 3.6 percent from a year earlier.
• Trading Revenue: Equities: $1.64 billion, Fixed income: $992 million, according to FactSet
• Investing Banking: $1.89 billion

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, who took over from Lloyd Blankfein on Oct. 1, is expected to address analysts on an earnings call for the first time Wednesday.

He’ll have a lot to discuss: Goldman shares dropped 34 percent last year, the worst performance among the six biggest banks.

Much of that decline happened after the U.S. Justice Department unsealed the Nov. 1 guilty plea of an ex-Goldman banker who helped a Malaysian financier loot an investment fund of billions of dollars. That announcement sparked a series of bad news related to the fund, 1MDB, including criminal charges filed by Malaysia and questions about the ultimate liability faced by the bank.

Analysts want to know the extent of costs to resolve 1MDB probes and whether or not the negative attention impacted business operations, according to Jason Goldberg of Barclays.

Furthermore, the market turbulence that pummelled bank stocks late last year also crimped trading and bond and stock underwriting desks, a development that could impact Goldman more than peers because its Wall Street operations make a bigger part of its revenue. Citigroup and J.P. Morgan were both impacted by declines in bond trading revenue of 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

In October, CFO Stephen Scherr said the firm was undertaking a “front-to-back” review of Goldman’s four main divisions to boost shareholder returns. So investors will want to hear if there are any early results from that effort, as well as guidance on 2019 targets and progress on a previously-disclosed $5 billion revenue project.

The New York-based investment bank is attempting to push into retail banking for the first time in its 150 year history, and investors will want an update on that effort as well.