For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Goldman Sachs (GS) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to GS for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Goldman Sachs' Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Goldman Sachs' main business drivers.

Founded in 1869, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global financial holding company providing IB, securities, investment management, and consumer banking services to a diversified client base. The company is headquartered in New York, with offices in major financial centers globally.

Goldman provides its services through the following broad segments:

The Global Banking and Markets segment (constitutes 65.3% of net revenues as of Dec. 31, 2024) generates revenues from IB fees, including advisory, and equity and debt underwriting fees, Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) intermediation and financing activities and Equities intermediation and financing activities. The segment also includes relationship lending and acquisition financing (and related hedges) and investing activities related to its Global Banking & Markets activities.

The Asset and Wealth Management segment (30.2%) generates revenues from management and other fees, incentive fees, equity investments and debt investments, as well as private banking and lending.

The Platform Solutions segment (4.5%) generates revenues from consumer platforms, and transaction banking and other platform businesses.

In 2023, Goldman completed the divestiture of its Personal Financial Management unit to Creative Planning, resulting in a gain of $349 million.

In 2022, the company acquired robo-advisor, NextCapital and Dutch asset manager, NN Investment Partners from NN Group N.V. The company also closed the acquisition of GreenSky in an all-stock transaction. In 2020 and 2019, Goldman completed its purchase of Folio Financial and United Capital, respectively.

Bottom Line

Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Goldman Sachs, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.

A $1000 investment made in February 2015 would be worth $3,575.75, or a gain of 257.58%, as of February 10, 2025, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 193.17% and the price of gold went up 122.76% over the same time frame.

Analysts are anticipating more upside for GS.

Shares of Goldman have outperformed the industry in the past six months. Its fourth-quarter 2024 results benefited from a strong performance in its IB business and a solid Asset & Wealth Management division. Its refocus on the core strengths of IB and trading businesses through restructuring initiatives will boost its presence in overseas markets. A decent liquidity position will aid capital distribution moves. However, the company's global banking and markets division will likely be under pressure due to the volatile nature of capital markets. Given the current geopolitical concerns, high dependence on overseas revenues is worrisome. Rising expenses might limit bottom-line growth. Nonetheless, the company's strategic acquisitions and expansion in private equity credit line will help diversify the fee revenue base, aiding top-line growth.

Shares have gained 17.13% over the past four weeks and there have been 8 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2025 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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