Jason Liu

Goldman's a Buy Heading Into Earnings

Around 1/4 of GS' originates from investment banking. With the markets the way they are currently, that business at least will definitely take a hit.
Furthermore while Goldman Sachs hasn't had any write downs, there have been fears that some of the SIVs may have to be written off this quarter. That along with how well GS' traders have done, accountable for 2/3 of their revenue, will decide how well GS does this quarter.

I'm also of the opinion that you can't really use P/E ratios to value financial stocks right now due to the absurd write downs taken. These non-recurring charges artificially inflate the P/E ratio and make the banks seem a lot more expensive than they really are.