Exaggerated rumours

If the Wall Street investment bank was supposedly trampled by the panic of 2008, someone forgot to tell Goldman Sachs. The credit crisis killed off Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and ended Merrill Lynch’s independence. Goldman, the last of its peers to go public, has recovered from its fourth-quarter loss to make $1.8bn in the first three months of the year – more than double analysts’ estimates. And that’s despite some poor numbers in some of its core businesses: incentive fees on hedge funds w...