Value at risk, a gauge of how much the firm could lose in a single day of trading, fell for the eighth consecutive quarter, to $101 million. The figure was the lowest since the third quarter of 2006. The firm reduced the amount at risk to equity prices, currencies and interest rates, while the risk in commodity prices jumped.

Revenue fell 39 percent to $7.28 billion from $11.9 billion in the first quarter and $8.84 billion a year earlier. The figure fell short of the average $8.2 billion estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Return on equity, a measure of how well the firm reinvests shareholder funds, decreased to 6.1 percent from 12.2 percent in the first quarter.

Revenue from trading, run since February 2008 by Edward K. Eisler, David B. Heller, Pablo J. Salame and Harvey M. Schwartz, fell to $3.52 billion from $6.65 billion in the first quarter and was down 29 percent from $4.98 billion in the second quarter of 2010.

"They can recover in the next couple of quarters on that trading stuff," said FBR's Miller. "Trading is a very volatile, very lumpy line."

Fixed Income

Fixed-income, currency and commodities trading, typically the largest source of Goldman Sachs's revenue, dropped to $1.6 billion from $4.33 billion in the first quarter. Last week JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank, said fixed-income trading revenue fell 18 percent from the first quarter to $4.28 billion. Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, said fixed-income trading revenue dropped 20 percent from the first quarter to $3.03 billion.

Roger Freeman, an analyst at Barclays Capital in New York, had estimated that Goldman Sachs would generate $2.8 billion in revenue from fixed-income, currencies and commodities.

The decline at Goldman Sachs reflected "significantly lower results in mortgages, commodities and interest-rate products," the firm said in the statement. "In addition, net revenues in currencies decreased slightly and net revenues in credit products were essentially unchanged compared with the second quarter of 2010."

Equity Trading

Goldman Sachs's equity-trading revenue declined 17 percent to $1.92 billion from $2.32 billion in the prior quarter and rose 19 percent from $1.61 billion a year earlier. That compared with $1.22 billion of second-quarter equity-trading revenue at JPMorgan and $812 million at Citigroup. Freeman expected Goldman Sachs's equities revenue to be $2 billion.

Revenue from investment banking, overseen globally by Richard J. Gnodde, David M. Solomon and John S. Weinberg, advanced to $1.45 billion in the quarter from $1.27 billion in the first quarter and $941 million in the second quarter of 2010. By comparison, JPMorgan's investment-banking fees totaled $1.92 billion in the quarter and Citigroup reaped $1.09 billion.

Goldman Sachs's investment-banking revenue exceeded estimates from analysts at Atlantic Equities, Barclays Capital and ISI Group, who expected revenue in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion.