Goldman Does It Again With Profit Beat

"They've got more IT people than they do traders," he said.

Goldman CFO David Viniar said during a conference call Tuesday morning that the firm has made good progress selling off the overhang of loans made before the credit crisis struck. At the end of the third quarter last year, the bank had $52 billion worth of loan commitments, and it has brought that number down to $14 billion. The figure does not include the $3 billion loan that Goldman will get rid of when it sells Alltel to Verizon (VZ Quote), which did not figure into the second quarter numbers reported today.

True to form for Goldman, the biggest driver was trading and principal investments, which accounted for $5.59 billion of the giant securities firm's $9.42 billion in revenues in the quarter.

The world's largest securities firm also saw revenues 29% higher than it ever reported in its securities services division, which includes prime brokerage. Bank of America analyst Michael Hecht called this "impressive," as he posed a question about it during the call.

Viniar says the securities services growth was due both to global expansion and market share growth. He did not discuss whether Goldman's market share growth came at the expense of Bear Stearns, though that seems likely, given that Bear was viewed by many as the number three prime broker before it went into a tailspin and agreed to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase(JPM Quote) earlier in the year.

Goldman is the second of three major U.S. securities firms to report results this week.