Business

While the landscape for hedge funds has been increasingly dreary in recent years, with increasingly fewer able to beat their benchmark, let alone the broader market in a time when alpha creation - for most - has disappeared, there is the occasional success story. One among them is the Pharo Macro Fund, whose manager Guillaume Fonkenell said he is returning profits to investors from his $5 billion macro fund after it beat rivals this year, on concerns it is getting too big.

While Goldman's overall results reported moments were generally solid, with the bank reporting Q2 revenue of $7.89 billion (exp. $7.52 billion) and net earnings of $1.83 billion, or EPS of $3.95, above the $3.39 expected, compared with $3.72 for Q2 of 2016 and $5.15 in Q1 2017, there was just one number everyone was focused on: the bank's most profitable segment, its FICC revenue, which however was painfully disappointing, at just $1.159 billion, down 40% Y/Y and roundly missing expectations of $1.47 billion, the bank's worst performance in this segment going back to Q4 2015.

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Echoing the trend set by JPM and Wells Fargo last Friday, moments ago Bank of America reported revenue and earnings that modestly beat expectations, with Q2 revenue of $22.8bn, above the $21.8bn expected, generating net income of $5.3 billion up 10% Y/Y, and EPS of $0.46, above the $0.43 estimate, and 12% higher than Q2 2016.

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