NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs is emerging as the king of post-meltdown Wall Street.

Already the nation's most powerful financial company before the credit crisis, the bank profited handsomely from Wall Street's rally and the recovering credit markets during the second quarter and distanced itself from the few competitors still standing.

The result was a stunning profit of $2.7 billion — even as the bank repaid $10 billion in federal bailout money. The total blew past what Wall Street analysts were expecting.

Goldman pulled off a remarkably speedy recovery from last fall, when it lost $3.3 billion in four months during the worst of the financial crisis. And it had its best quarter since the end of 2007, when the recession was just beginning.

The results also confirm despite controversy over everything from its role in the meltdown and the bonuses it pays executives and even the power of its alumni who sit at the highest levels of government, one thing remains constant: Goldman knows how to make money better than anybody else on Wall Street.

While other firms have curtailed risk and preserved cash to protect against further losses, Goldman has returned to what made it so profitable in the past — high-risk trading and investing in everything from mortgages to commodities and underwriting of stock and debt offers.

"Goldman really is in a class by themselves," said Phillip Silitschanu, a senior analyst with Aite Group. "They've always been the golden child of the market."

Of course, Goldman also benefited because there are fewer competitors on Wall Street following the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers Holdings in 2008. Both companies were felled by their investments in risky, and ultimately failed, mortgage-backed securities.

And in a sign the mood in Washington might be shifting, there was little outrage directed at Goldman from officials who have criticized the firm in recent months. Goldman took the bailout cash under pressure from the government at a time when faith in its financial institutions was shaken to its core.

While Goldman is making money in its core businesses, it's also gotten some hard cash into its corporate treasury that has also strengthened the company. Warren Buffett made a well-publicized investment of $5 billion in the bank in September. Goldman also benefited from the government's bailout money to insurer American International Group, which paid Goldman $12.9 billion during the first quarter.