The bank reported a return on equity of 10.4 percent in the first nine months of last year, after earning 10.7 percent in 2012 and 3.7 percent in 2011. That compares with 8 percent for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the first three quarters of 2013, 7.8 percent for Citigroup Inc. and 6 percent for Morgan Stanley.

Goldman Sachs’s superior returns helped drive its shares to the highest premium over book value of the five largest Wall Street banks.

The full-year return on equity probably will be 10.4 percent, according to the average of estimates by 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company reports fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on Jan. 16. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment.

Analysts aren’t optimistic about the bank’s profitability. Keith Horowitz at Citigroup in New York estimates that return on equity will remain below 12 percent through 2016, and Brad Hintz at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. predicts that new rules will probably keep it from surpassing 15 percent again.

Blankfein, Cohn

Blankfein and then-Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said in 2009 and 2010 that it was too soon after the financial crisis to say whether they would change the 20 percent target. In June 2011, President Gary Cohn said the firm couldn’t forecast return on equity in the current environment and would provide a goal when management had greater clarity on new regulations including international capital requirements and the Volcker Rule, which curbs proprietary trading.

Blankfein and CFO Harvey Schwartz said last year that the regulatory environment was still too uncertain to set a target. Regulators didn’t adopt a final version of the Volcker Rule until last month, more than three years after it was included in the Dodd-Frank Act.

‘Prefer Clarity’

“Most investors prefer clarity over uncertainty,” said Christopher Lee, a money manager focused on financial firms at Boston-based Fidelity Investments, the second-biggest mutual- fund company. “In the absence of having explicit targets, whether you believe them or not, it can in general be an overhang.”

Lee said he understands why Goldman Sachs isn’t quick to set a target amid the uncertainty over new regulations and reshaped trading businesses. While investors aren’t discounting current returns, they also aren’t giving the firm credit for any expected future improvement, he said.