Like many large Wall Street banks, Goldman Sachs (GS) is trading at a discount to its book value at 0.82x. The firm’s return on equity (ROE) has dipped to around the 6% mark over the trailing twelve months and business is down essentially across the board. To fight the slump, GS has placed more of its business into fixed income instruments to better generate revenue in an environment with a poor risk profile. Despite this maneuver, central banks around the globe have pushed interest rates down even further from their zero or near-zero standing, which has hurt what seemed like a safe bet. Securities underwriting and commodities trading is also down. As a result, the stock is down 23% YTD and 32% in the past 52 weeks. GS organizes its revenue into four main segments – investment banking (21% of revenue), institutional client services (45%), investment management (18%), and investing and lending (16%). Each division is down from last year, despite maintaining its number one status in various specialties, such as M&A and common stock offerings.GS basically needs a few things to go in its favor to rise again: (1) Stronger stock and bond markets – When markets benefit investors to the long side, it should better the M&A and IPO climate.(2) More lending activity – It’s not as if lending net interest income is great at the moment, but it could very well be a better alternative than losing money on its market bets.(3) More cost cutting – Employee pay once consumed close to 45% of GS’s expenses; by the end of the decade it could be below 35%. Expense reduction is always the main option whenever the top-line is lagging.