Why Goldman Sachs stock is down today: Apple Card handoff and CPI sharpen focus on Jan. 15 earnings

13 January 2026

New York, January 13, 2026, 12:37 ET — Regular session.

GS slips about 0.8% in midday trade as bank earnings season kicks off
JPMorgan’s Apple Card provision keeps attention on Goldman’s consumer pullback
A cooler core inflation print steadies rate-cut bets, but the path is still messy

Goldman Sachs Group Inc shares fell on Tuesday, down $7.54, or 0.8%, to $942.01 in midday New York trading. The stock has ranged from $931.59 to $953.07 so far in the session.

The timing matters. Big banks are opening their books, inflation data hit the tape, and investors are trying to work out whether last quarter’s trading and deal chatter turns into real fees.

JPMorgan Chase, the first major U.S. bank to report this week, topped estimates as markets revenue rose 17%, but it booked a $2.2 billion provision tied to an agreement with Goldman to take over the Apple Card partnership. “The U.S. economy has remained resilient,” CEO Jamie Dimon said, and CFO Jeremy Barnum told reporters that “consumers and small businesses remain resilient.” Reuters

For Goldman, the Apple Card exit is still a live wire into Thursday’s results. The bank said it agreed to transition the Apple Card program and associated accounts to Chase and expects the transaction to lift its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings by $0.46 a share, helped by a $2.48 billion release of loan-loss reserves — money set aside for potential defaults — partly offset by $2.26 billion of revenue reductions and $38 million of expenses. “This transaction substantially completes the narrowing of our focus in our consumer business,” CEO David Solomon said. Goldman Sachs

Then came the inflation print. U.S. consumer prices rose 0.3% in December, while core CPI — which strips out food and energy — increased 0.2%, leaving annual core inflation at 2.6%, Reuters reported. “The recent run of figures suggests inflation has peaked,” said Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. Treasury yields fell after the release, a move that can pinch net interest income — what banks earn on loans minus what they pay on deposits — if it holds. Reuters

Rate expectations have been lurching even before Tuesday’s CPI. Goldman and Barclays pushed back their calls for the first Fed rate cut to September and December, respectively, and traders were pricing a 95% chance the Fed holds rates steady at its January meeting, Reuters reported.

The read-through for Goldman is not just rates. Investors will be listening for how management frames trading conditions into year-end and whether investment banking pipelines actually closed, after JPMorgan flagged a miss in that line.

There are still signs the deal machine is turning. U.S. Bancorp said on Tuesday it would buy brokerage BTIG for up to $1 billion in cash and stock, a transaction advised by Goldman, in a bid to deepen capital markets capabilities beyond traditional banking.

But there is a downside script. If volatility fades and underwriting and advisory work slips into later quarters, Goldman’s results can look thinner once one-off items wash through, and the stock can gap on commentary rather than the headline numbers.

Goldman said it will announce fourth-quarter 2025 financial results at about 7:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, January 15, followed by a conference call at 9:30 a.m. ET. That report, and Solomon’s tone on trading and deal demand early in 2026, is the next clear catalyst for GS shares.

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Khadija Saeed is a financial markets reporter at TS2.tech. Her coverage ranges from stocks and technology to emerging industries and developments across global markets. She studied economics and finance at the London School of Economics and worked in market research before becoming a financial journalist. Follow Khadija Saeed on Google News.

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