Attempting to forecast earnings at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks in the current market turmoil is like trying to catch a falling knife with one hand while trying to nail jelly to the wall with the other. But are analysts with the unenviable task of covering Wall Street better at their jobs than they think they are, albeit unwittingly?

Both Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers today announced "better than expected" earnings for their fiscal first quarter to the end of February, "beating analyst forecasts" by 51% and 12% respectively. Having beaten the Street, and buoyed by a recovery in stock markets today and the absence of anything too nasty in their results, shares in both firms bounced back.