Well, if you were waiting on signs that Goldman is on the verge of turning things around in its struggling commodities unit, you might have to wait a little longer because Bloomberg just reported that according to “people familiar with the matter”, commodities revenues for 2017 plunged 75% to the lowest on record.

jesus. *GOLDMAN COMMODITY REVENUE SAID TO DROP 75% TO LOWEST ON RECORD

— Walter White (@heisenbergrpt) January 16, 2018

That’s some rough shit right there, and it underscores just how dire the situation had become when the bank embarked on an effort to turn things around after an abysmal Q2 performance.

Back in July, on the Q2 call, CFO Marty Chavez said the following about FICC performance:

We are a market leader in commodities, but it was a challenging environment on multiple fronts.

[…]

Commodities was also significantly lower and was our worst quarter on record.

[…]

Not surprisingly given the results, it was a difficult quarter on all fronts. The market backdrop was challenged. Client activity remained light and we didn’t navigate the market as well as we aspire to or as well as we have in the past. Nevertheless, the firm remains committed in every way to help our clients manage their commodity risk.

Asked by UBS’ Brennan Hawken to explain that further,  Chavez said this:

So, I would just observe that out of the 73 quarters that we’ve been a public company, it was the worst quarter for the commodities business and we don’t break out further – the contribution of the individual product lines.

There is a lot of reasons for that but really, we just think of it as a business that serves the clients holistically across a number of different products. And that’s where I’ll leave it.

So that’s “where he left it” – until October when Goldman’s Q3 results showed a 26% drop in FICC trading revenue (which was actually better than expected). Commenting on the Q3 call, Chavez weighed in as follows, responding to a question during the analyst Q&A: