How Goldman Sachs Shaped the Global Financial Markets

As early as 1848, the year of the European revolutions, a man named Marcus Goldman emigrated to the United States, the land of "unlimited" opportunity. In 1869, he rented a small office on Pine Street in New York City, a street running parallel to Wall Street. The nameplate on the door read "Marcus Goldman & Co" giving no indication of the enormous success the company would later achieve in the financial world.

Marcus Goldman worked as a broker and traded promissory notes issued by tobacco and diamond merchants (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11.01.19). In doing so, the shrewd businessman identified a gap in the market: many small and mid-sized companies needed short-term financing but had no access to established banks. At the time, the US economy was expanding rapidly, driven by industrialisation, railroad construction and growing trade flows. Demand for corporate commercial papers (short-term debt instruments) was high as a result. Goldman bought the promissory notes at a discount and resold them to investors, laying the foundation for what we now know as investment banking.

Because of the company’s success, Goldman's son-in-law Samuel Sachs joined the firm in 1882, and the company was renamed "Goldman, Sachs & Co." in 1896 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11.01.19). During this period, the institutional structure of Goldman Sachs continued to develop, and improved networking enabled the firm to gain access to larger and more prestigious clients. The company also began underwriting initial public offerings (IPOs), a decisive step that transformed it from a trading house into an issuer. By the end of the 19th century, Goldman Sachs was already one of the largest commercial paper dealers in the United States, deeply involved in financing growing industries and closely intertwined with the development of the American capital markets. The IPO of Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1906 marked a milestone, catapulting the firm into the top tier of investment banks. In 2019, roughly 150 years after Marcus Goldman arrived in New York, Goldman Sachs continues to rank among the world's largest and most successful investment banks in the annual league tables (Financial Times, 31.12.25).

The qualities that defined Marcus Goldman continue to shape the corporate culture at Goldman Sachs to this day. His entrepreneurial pragmatism, combined with a strong emphasis on networking, set the course for the bank's strategic direction. Early on, Goldman focused on the capital markets and developed a partnership model that united a performance-driven culture with personal accountability. This partnership structure endured for over a century and gave rise to Goldman Sachs' notorious internal "elite culture", which still influences the bank's thinking, conduct and decision-making.

Goldman Sachs operated as a partnership for more than a century, following the model established by Marcus Goldman and later Samuel Sachs. Under this structure, senior partners were the owners of the firm. They bore personal responsibility for profits and losses and made strategic decisions among themselves. The system encouraged both performance orientation and network-building, as success was directly tied to each partner's stake in the firm.

As the bank grew and global financial markets became increasingly complex, the partners began to encounter limitations. Capital for expansion and larger deals was at times constrained, and bringing in external investors proved difficult. To remain competitive and raise new funds, Goldman Sachs decided to go public in 1999. The initial public offering made the bank publicly tradable for the first time, providing fresh equity capital and enabling the firm to finance its expansion into new business areas.

Despite the listing, the cultural DNA of the partnership remained intact. Management retained strong control over strategic decisions, and performance-based incentive structures for senior executives were preserved. The transformation was thus less of a break and more of an evolution, one that allowed Goldman Sachs to stay competitive in an increasingly globalised financial world without abandoning the roots of its corporate culture.

Goldman Sachs has demonstrated a remarkable trajectory in recent years and months. For the 2025 financial year, the bank reported strong results, particularly in Investment Banking and Global Markets, and announced a dividend increase, underscoring confidence in the stability of its earnings. Net income attributable to shareholders came in at USD 4.4 billion, 12 per cent above the prior-year figure. For the full year 2025, profit rose by more than 20 per cent to USD 16.3 billion. Total revenues increased by nine per cent over the same period to USD 58.3 billion. In trading, Goldman posted a gain of roughly 25 percent, generating USD 4.31 billion, more than any other US bank has ever earned in a single quarter (Der Aktionär, 15.01.26). The firm cemented its position as a leading provider in investment banking, delivering stable revenues across advisory, underwriting and capital markets activities. In asset management, Goldman Sachs also showed relative stability compared to competitors, although inflows in the private credit segment remained moderate.

In early 2026, the stock reached an all-time high of approximately USD 961, supported by solid operational performance and positive market sentiment (Barron's, 27.02.26). Looking at the share price, Goldman delivered a markedly above-average performance for the 2025 financial year relative to broader equity indices, with a one-year return of around 40 percent (Yahoo Finance, 03.03.26).

At the same time, there were short-term challenges. The stock experienced periods of heightened volatility, and several senior managers departed for competitors, raising questions about talent management and internal dynamics. Operating costs also rose by approximately 18 per cent to USD 9.71 billion. Overall, Goldman Sachs presents itself as a bank that, despite short-term volatility and personnel changes, maintains both operational strength and strategic positioning, and continues to be regarded as one of the most influential institutions in global finance. Vontobel offers a wide range of leverage products with Goldman Sachs as underlying, allowing investors to take both long and short exposure depending on their own view.