Goldman Sachs Group Inc. offered a rare mea culpa on Tuesday, after uncharacteristic weakness in its bread-and-butter trading business helped the investment-banking powerhouse to deliver a first-quarter earnings stumble.

“We did underperform and the underperformance was driven by commodities and currencies,” said newly minted Chief Financial Officer Martin Chavez, during a Tuesday morning call with analysts to discuss the bank’s quarterly results. “We could have done a better job navigating the markets and that’s all I will say,” he said.

Goldman’s GS, -2.91% overall trading declined 2.4% from a year earlier to $3.36 billion, with equity trading revenue down 6% to $1.67 billion, compared with $1.78 billion in the year-ago quarter. Fees from its business related to trading bonds, commodities and currencies, gained slightly to $1.69 billion.

Still, the trading results marked an unusual lapse for the 148-year-old investment bank, founded by Marcus Goldman and Samuel Sachs, whose roots are steeped in the business of trading stocks and bonds, as much as brokering large corporate mergers and acquisitions.

It also comes as rivals to the fifth largest bank by assets outperformed in trading. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, -1.14% and Citigroup Inc. C, -1.06% , which reported healthy quarterly results last week, both boasted a 17% increase in profit on the back of their trading operations.

At J.P. Morgan, revenue from trading bonds, stocks and currencies, increased 13% to $5.82 billion from $5.17 billion in the first quarter of 2016, and a business related to trading Treasurys and other government bonds showed a 17% year-over-year climb.

For Citigroup, trading increased by 17%, compared with the same period a year ago, climbing to $4.39 billion from $3.75 billion.

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Bank of America Corp. BAC, -0.97% , which also reported quarterly results on Tuesday, posted a 22.5% increase in revenues to $4.029 billion from $3.288 billion in the first quarter of last year, excluding adjustments for accounting.

“Goldman simply did not match what its biggest competitors did in the quarter,” Dick Bove, analyst at Rafferty Capital Markets told MarketWatch. “This raises serious questions about what is happening in that company.”

Rafferty cut its rating on Goldman to hold from buy on the news and lowered its stock price target to $221 from $288, which is still above the stock’s current trading level of about $213.

Goldman’s shares were off more than $10.67, or 4.7%, marking its steepest daily decline since June 24, 2016, in the aftermath of the U.K.’s referendum on leaving the European Union. The drop also marked its worst one-day fall following an earnings report ever, based on FactSet data.

Among the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.46% , Goldman’s decline was slashing more than 70 points from the price-weighted blue-chip gauge. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.84% ended the session off 0.3% as the lackluster earnings weighed on the broader market.

Run by CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman is among the most prominent investment banks, but one of its weaknesses is that its balance sheet pales in comparison to behemoth’s like J.P. Morgan, which can leverage their size and trading desks as clients position themselves in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election victory and promise of new regulatory and tax reforms. J.P. Morgan boasts total assets off $2.5 trillion, compared with Goldman’s total assets of $860 billion, as of the end of 2016.

“We note that some of our competitors have bigger financing businesses and more significant corporate brands as a result of a larger lending book,” Chavez said on Tuesday’s call.

A number of bank officials said the gains in trading came as investors readjusted their portfolios ahead of the uncertainty of elections in France, where antiestablishment candidate Marine Le Pen, threatens to end France’s EU membership if she wins the presidential election.

To be sure, Goldman could rebound in the coming quarters as volatility revs up after a quiet phase.

Since Trump’s presidential election victory on Nov. 8, Goldman has gained 18.5%, compared with a 9.8% climb for the S&P 500 and a roughly 12% rise for the Dow. However, Goldman is down 10% year to date, compared with a 5% gain for the S&P 500, as expectations that Trump will quickly deliver bank-friendly stimulus wane.