Goldman Sachs (GS) Price on Solana

Goldman Sachs' board has discussed a plan for president and COO John Waldron, 57, to succeed CEO David Solomon, 64, possibly as soon as next year, according to reporting first published by The Wall Street Journal. Under the arrangement being considered, Solomon would stay on as executive chairman for one to two years after the handover. The plan still needs approval from the full board and people familiar with it say it is far from settled. A Goldman spokesman said the board discusses succession routinely but that no definitive timeline has been set. Goldman shares fell about 2% after the report.

CNBC's analysis points to the main risk: Solomon may not be ready to step down, and Waldron may not be willing to wait indefinitely. Solomon chairs the board and has considerable influence over it, which makes it hard to push him out. Directors are also wary of delaying, because in late 2024 they learned that Waldron had held serious talks with Apollo Global Management and other firms. In January 2025 the board gave him an \$80 million retention package tied to a five-year commitment, and Solomon received a matching award. Promoting Waldron would also reshuffle senior roles below him, with executives such as Dan Dees, Ashok Varadhan and Marc Nachmann likely to be affected.

The Federal Reserve raised its federal funds target range by a quarter point to 3.75%-4%, and it may not be finished. CNBC reports that policymakers are dealing with stubborn inflation, driven in part by the war with Iran, while the U.S. economy stays resilient. CNBC's Investing Club looked at what further hikes would mean for four bank stocks it holds: Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Capital One and BNY. Based on RBC estimates, Goldman is among the least exposed. An instantaneous 100-basis-point rise in market rates would change Goldman's earnings per share by less than 1%. RBC gives the same estimate for Capital One and BNY.

Wells Fargo is the most rate-sensitive of the four. RBC estimates that the same 100-basis-point move would lift Wells Fargo's net interest revenue by about \$1.3 billion, or 2.6%, and its 2026 core EPS by about 4.7%. CNBC notes that banks can gain early in a tightening cycle, when loan yields reprice faster than deposit costs. As hikes pile up, attention moves to funding costs, the yield curve and whether higher borrowing costs start to hurt the economy and credit quality. For Goldman, that means the direct benefit from wider margins is small. Its exposure to further hikes depends more on how they affect the broader economy.

Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs argued in a client note this week that persistently weak consumer sentiment reflects a broad societal decline in happiness rather than underlying economic weakness. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index fell roughly 13% year-over-year in September and dropped nearly 8% from August alone, reaching record lows — a disconnect that has puzzled economists given relatively healthy GDP growth and employment data.

Briggs wrote that "low reported economic sentiment likely reflects a more fundamental, downbeat assessment of the state of the world rather than the economy." Drawing on the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, his analysis found that overall happiness has declined more sharply than financial satisfaction metrics, and that eroding trust in public institutions accounts for a "disproportionate amount" of the drop in net happiness. The note concludes that economic improvements alone may be insufficient to lift sentiment, and that actual spending and hiring trends are more reliable forward indicators than survey-based measures.

Goldman Sachs has shifted its commodity positioning from diesel to European gasoline futures for mid-2027, arguing that refiners pivoting output toward diesel are inadvertently tightening gasoline markets. The bank notes that global refinery outages are running roughly 60% above seasonal averages — driven largely by war-related disruptions in the Middle East and Russia — pushing global refining activity to its lowest levels since 2020. While new production in the Americas and Africa has partially offset lost diesel supply, Goldman estimates it covers only about a third of the shortfall.

With diesel's tightness now well-priced into the market, Goldman sees gasoline as offering more upside from current levels. As refiners continue to prioritize diesel output, the bank expects gasoline markets to grow increasingly constrained heading into next year. The call reflects Goldman's broader commodities research franchise, which has maintained elevated diesel refining margin forecasts while now flagging the relative underpricing of gasoline on a forward basis.

Goldman Sachs examined one of the bond market's lingering anxieties — that rising Treasury yields would push foreign investors out of U.S. corporate debt — and found the fear hasn't materialized. Net foreign purchases of U.S. corporate bonds reached $251 billion through June 2026, putting the year on pace to nearly match 2025's record $392 billion. Foreign investors now hold roughly 29% of the U.S. corporate bond market, with European buyers accounting for 52% of net purchases since early 2022, more than double Asia's 21% share.

Goldman's chief credit strategist Amanda Lynam noted that "foreign appetite for US credit has persisted despite a range of headwinds in recent years." The bank expects demand to remain broadly stable, arguing that the U.S. corporate bond market's unmatched size and depth leaves foreign allocators with few viable alternatives. Goldman added that any potential pullback from Japanese investors — a concern amid yen dynamics — would likely be manageable at the aggregate level.

Goldman Sachs chief U.S. equity strategist Ben Snider has estimated that AI investment spending is driving roughly half of S&P 500 earnings growth — a headline figure that has circulated bullishly but carries a concentrated risk profile. The surge is anchored in a narrow cluster of hyperscalers: Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Broadcom account for the bulk of the capital expenditure fueling those gains, with NVIDIA posting Q2 revenue of $96.2 billion (up 106% year-over-year) and Broadcom reporting $16.7 billion in AI semiconductor revenue for its most recent quarter, up 221%.

The double-edged nature of the finding is the more important takeaway. If even two or three of those hyperscaler buyers decelerated their AI capex, a significant share of S&P 500 profit growth would thin out quickly — since capital spending is discretionary and can be cut faster than revenue expectations adjust. With the index trading at a compressed forward P/E near 19x and September seasonality adding headwinds, Goldman's own data implies the market's near-term trajectory is unusually dependent on the continued willingness of a small group of tech giants to keep spending.

Goldman Sachs is working with a consortium of 21 global banks — including Citigroup and Bank of America — to launch a regulated USD-backed stablecoin, with an entity formation planned for 2026 and a target launch in H1 2027. The initiative is positioned explicitly as a bank-led project distinct from any central bank digital currency, prioritizing regulatory compliance throughout development.

The planned stablecoin is aimed at cross-border payments and institutional settlements, with the consortium structure distributing both build-out costs and regulatory responsibilities across participants. Goldman Sachs would extend its existing strengths in payments, trading, and balance sheet management into the digital asset space, with the shared infrastructure also designed to support potential future expansion into additional fiat currencies.

Goldman Sachs added three European stocks to its Conviction Buy List: Dutch payment processor Adyen, German energy company RWE, and German insurer Talanx. Analyst Mohammed Moawalla set a price target of €1,788.08 on Adyen — implying 77% upside from its recent close of €1,006.80 — citing the company's integrated platform, new US and Shopify partnerships, and agentic commerce opportunities with OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. For RWE, analyst Alberto Gandolfi assigned a €75 target (28% upside), pointing to grid-spending tailwinds, potential data center partnerships, stronger US renewable returns, and possible LNG profits. Talanx received a €141 target from analyst Andrew Baker, who described the insurer's Retail International division as an "underappreciated growth engine" with projected annual premium growth of 8–10% through 2030.

The additions coincide with Goldman removing four names from the list — Hannover Re, Enel, Wise, and Zalando. The conviction list moves underscore Goldman's selective optimism on European equities as the firm rotates its highest-conviction calls toward payment infrastructure, energy transition, and specialty insurance plays.

Goldman Sachs has raised its year-end 2026 gold price target to $4,900 per troy ounce, even after gold's nearly 30% gain over the past year, pointing to sustained central bank buying as the primary structural driver. The firm expects central banks to purchase an average of 50 tonnes of gold per month in 2026 — roughly three times the 17-tonne monthly pace recorded before 2022 — as sovereign institutions continue diversifying reserves away from the U.S. dollar to hedge geopolitical and financial risks. Gold has already surpassed the dollar as the largest global reserve asset, and Goldman's analysts note that gold's share in private portfolios remains low, leaving room for retail and institutional demand to add further lift.

The call reinforces Goldman Sachs's standing as one of the most closely watched voices in commodity markets. By coupling its central bank demand thesis with an expectation that a lower inflation trend keeps the Federal Reserve on hold through the year — reducing the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets — Goldman is framing gold's ongoing rally as structurally grounded rather than speculative. Rising demand for gold call options as macro hedges also features in the firm's analysis, underscoring the breadth of the commodities research operation behind the forecast.