The Goldman Sachs future prediction machine

[jpinpb]

I am curious/wondering if GS is doing any short selling of BP.

Edit: Doing some checking, right on the link that’s referenced, it shows that this sale represented 0.4% of their total portfolio .. that is less than one half percent.

From what I gather, 3 months would be a long time to move out of 4.5 million shares–there are blocks larger than that which change hands regularly in a single trade among large institutional investors, like GSAM.

Edit 2: Also, GS is a holding company – they buy & sell shares not only for their own accounts, but for customers too. So while they did sell, they may not have necessarily benefitted. It would be interesting to see which of their clients did. Definitely prescient to have sold at such an opportune time.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]That is a huge move in a single quarter – 5M shares sold in only 60 days of trading. Of course they’re not going to dump it all in a single day, there wouldn’t be enough buyers. No other major holder has anything similar. Also check out XOM for the same period, there are no big moves out of the stock.

It is just a coincidence, but an interesting one. No need to look further, it will never be investigated.[/quote]

Average daily trading volume for BP prior to the spill was over 5 million shares (now it’s over 20 million per day). And that’s not double-counted volume (as with the Nasdaq). Getting out of a 5 million share position could be done without materially impacting the share price over a couple of weeks rather easily.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]That is a huge move in a single quarter – 5M shares sold in only 60 days of trading. Of course they’re not going to dump it all in a single day, there wouldn’t be enough buyers. No other major holder has anything similar. Also check out XOM for the same period, there are no big moves out of the stock.

It is just a coincidence, but an interesting one. No need to look further, it will never be investigated.[/quote]

Average daily trading volume for BP prior to the spill was over 5 million shares (now it’s over 20 million per day). And that’s not double-counted volume (as with the Nasdaq). Getting out of a 5 million share position could be done without materially impacting the share price over a couple of weeks rather easily.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]That is a huge move in a single quarter – 5M shares sold in only 60 days of trading. Of course they’re not going to dump it all in a single day, there wouldn’t be enough buyers. No other major holder has anything similar. Also check out XOM for the same period, there are no big moves out of the stock.

It is just a coincidence, but an interesting one. No need to look further, it will never be investigated.[/quote]

Average daily trading volume for BP prior to the spill was over 5 million shares (now it’s over 20 million per day). And that’s not double-counted volume (as with the Nasdaq). Getting out of a 5 million share position could be done without materially impacting the share price over a couple of weeks rather easily.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]That is a huge move in a single quarter – 5M shares sold in only 60 days of trading. Of course they’re not going to dump it all in a single day, there wouldn’t be enough buyers. No other major holder has anything similar. Also check out XOM for the same period, there are no big moves out of the stock.

It is just a coincidence, but an interesting one. No need to look further, it will never be investigated.[/quote]

Average daily trading volume for BP prior to the spill was over 5 million shares (now it’s over 20 million per day). And that’s not double-counted volume (as with the Nasdaq). Getting out of a 5 million share position could be done without materially impacting the share price over a couple of weeks rather easily.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]That is a huge move in a single quarter – 5M shares sold in only 60 days of trading. Of course they’re not going to dump it all in a single day, there wouldn’t be enough buyers. No other major holder has anything similar. Also check out XOM for the same period, there are no big moves out of the stock.

It is just a coincidence, but an interesting one. No need to look further, it will never be investigated.[/quote]

Average daily trading volume for BP prior to the spill was over 5 million shares (now it’s over 20 million per day). And that’s not double-counted volume (as with the Nasdaq). Getting out of a 5 million share position could be done without materially impacting the share price over a couple of weeks rather easily.

[blahblahblah]

BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.

[blahblahblah]

BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.

[blahblahblah]

BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.

[blahblahblah]

BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.

[blahblahblah]

BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.[/quote]

The CEO of a major company, making 4 million GBP annually, only owns 4.2 million GBP worth of the company’s stock? That might be part of the problem right there. Relative to his cash compensation, this guy has very little ownership in the company. Don’t get me wrong, 4.2 million GBP is not chump change, but… it certainly isn’t much compared to the cash they’re paying him. (I don’t want to turn this into a thread about the proper structure of management compensation – that’s a big subject. I’m just pointing out something that looks particularly odd from my experience.)

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.[/quote]

The CEO of a major company, making 4 million GBP annually, only owns 4.2 million GBP worth of the company’s stock? That might be part of the problem right there. Relative to his cash compensation, this guy has very little ownership in the company. Don’t get me wrong, 4.2 million GBP is not chump change, but… it certainly isn’t much compared to the cash they’re paying him. (I don’t want to turn this into a thread about the proper structure of management compensation – that’s a big subject. I’m just pointing out something that looks particularly odd from my experience.)

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.[/quote]

The CEO of a major company, making 4 million GBP annually, only owns 4.2 million GBP worth of the company’s stock? That might be part of the problem right there. Relative to his cash compensation, this guy has very little ownership in the company. Don’t get me wrong, 4.2 million GBP is not chump change, but… it certainly isn’t much compared to the cash they’re paying him. (I don’t want to turn this into a thread about the proper structure of management compensation – that’s a big subject. I’m just pointing out something that looks particularly odd from my experience.)

[davelj]

[quote=CONCHO]BP chief Tony Hayward sells 30% of his BP stock one month before the spill.[/quote]

The CEO of a major company, making 4 million GBP annually, only owns 4.2 million GBP worth of the company’s stock? That might be part of the problem right there. Relative to his cash compensation, this guy has very little ownership in the company. Don’t get me wrong, 4.2 million GBP is not chump change, but… it certainly isn’t much compared to the cash they’re paying him. (I don’t want to turn this into a thread about the proper structure of management compensation – that’s a big subject. I’m just pointing out something that looks particularly odd from my experience.)

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