The bank derived about 70 percent of its revenue last year from investments with the firm’s own money or trading with clients. The performance of those businesses is often tied to the rise or fall of asset prices.

A stock-market rebound and a $500 million profit from selling a hedge-fund-administration unit helped revenue recover from the lowest first half since 2005 as the company booked its first annual revenue gain in three years. Revenue in Investing & Lending, the segment that includes the firm’s stakes in stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity and hedge funds, almost tripled last year to $5.89 billion from $2.14 billion.

Ed Najarian, an analyst at International Strategy & Investment Group LLC, said he raised his estimates for Goldman Sachs’s earnings per share through 2015 because he expects the annual compensation ratio to hold below 40 percent. He kept a neutral rating on the stock because he expects gains from private-equity and debt holdings to be lower this year and predicts regulations will limit trading revenue, according to a research note yesterday.

Reinsurance Business

Goldman Sachs said yesterday that $1.08 billion of the firm’s $8.2 billion of equity trading revenue was from the bank’s reinsurance business, marking the first time that the company disclosed revenue from that segment. The firm is considering selling a majority stake in that unit, said Harvey M. Schwartz, who will replace Chief Financial Officer David A. Viniar, 57, at the end of this month.

The bank still doesn’t have enough information on proposed regulatory changes to give a target for future return on equity, Schwartz, 48, said on a conference call with investors. The 10.7 percent figure for 2012 was “not particularly aspirational,” he said. “We’d like to do better.”

Central bank policies have boosted asset prices, and that’s likely to continue to contribute to higher profits at firms like Goldman Sachs, said Boston Advisors’ Vogelzang. He said he expects the bank’s return on equity to reach the “mid-teens.”

“The way we view the ROE target is this is a very cyclical business, highly dependent on capital markets,” Vogelzang said. “Our outlook for particularly the U.S. equity markets is quite strong, and they’re going to be levered to that.”

Better Balance

Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, 58, has undertaken a $1.9 billion expense-reduction effort since mid- 2011. That helped reduce the compensation ratio, which was part of an effort to strike a better balance between rewarding employees and shareholders, Schwartz told analysts.