Goldman Sachs Liquidates Stocks Worth $10.5 Billion

Multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs reportedly sold stocks worth $10.5 billion in block trades as part of a major selling spree that swept off $35 billion from major company stocks.

According to a report by Bloomberg on Saturday, an email sent to clients revealed that the Wall Street giant sold $6.6 billion worth of shares of Baidu Inc., Tencent Music Entertainment Group, and Vipshop Holdings Ltd. before the market opened in the U.S.

Following this, Goldman sold $3.9 billion worth of shares in ViacomCBS Inc, Discovery Inc, Farfetch Ltd, iQIYI Inc, and GSX Techedu Inc, according to the report.

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Most of the unregistered stock offerings were managed by Morgan Stanley, on behalf of one or more undisclosed shareholders, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.

Calculations based on Bloomberg data showed that some trades exceeded $1 billion in individual companies, the report said.

Wall Street is now collectively speculating on the identity of the mysterious seller or sellers. The liquidation triggered price swings for every stock involved in the high-volume transactions, rattling traders and prompting talk that a hedge fund or family office was in trouble and being forced to sell.

The report revealed that several major investment banks with ties to hedge fund Archegos Capital Management LLC liquidated holdings, contributing to the slump in share prices of ViacomCBS and Discovery, IPO Edge reported, citing people it didn’t identify. CNBC reported forced sales by Archegos were probably related to margin calls on heavily leveraged positions. Archegos is controlled by former Julian Robertson protege and Tiger Management analyst Bill Hwang.

Shares in ViacomCBS and Discovery tumbled around 27% each on Friday, while U.S.-listed shares of China based Baidu and Tencent Music plunged this week, dropping as much as 33.5% and 48.5%, respectively, from Tuesday’s closing levels.