Goldman Sachs Group's revenue, net profit and earnings per share exceeded expectations in the first quarter, but it is still hard to conceal the fact that the bank has sold its shares for four consecutive quarters and lost money on its stock investments for three consecutive quarters.

Goldman Sachs Group's stock trading division lost more than $820 million in the third quarter of 2021, according to its financial report. The bank's equity trading division also performed disappointingly in the fourth quarter of 2021, losing $500 million in stock trading. In the first quarter of 2022, Goldman Sachs Group said net income from "asset management" fell 88% from a year earlier to $546 million from $4.6 billion a year earlier, while public market equity investments lost $620 million this quarter.

According to Goldman Sachs Group's investors, for the third consecutive quarter, "the net loss on equity investment reflects the mark-to-market net loss on public equity investment." "

Goldman Sachs Group further elaborated on equity income, pointing out that although private equity investment generated $255 million in revenue in the first quarter of this year, much lower than the huge profit of $2.78 billion a year ago, but public equity actually caused a loss of $500m in the first quarter of this year, the third loss in a row!

People can't help but wonder why Goldman Sachs Group, as a world-famous investment bank, hasn't made money from stock trading in the past nine months. David Kostin, Goldman Sachs Group's chief equity strategist, has been calling for buy a few weeks ago, and has been unprecedentedly cautious in recent weeks.

What is even more confusing is that Goldman Sachs Group's stock trading not only lost nearly $2 billion in the first three quarters, but also sold shares for four consecutive quarters.

Goldman Sachs Group sold $1 billion of shares in the first quarter of this year, according to the data. However, Goldman Sachs Group's net nominal equity investment at the end of the first quarter of 2022 was $18 billion.

To whom will Goldman Sachs Group sell his stock?

Retail investors are the main force of stock purchases in 2021. Some media joked that in addition to the retail investors who held high the banner of buying last year, they may also be investors who read the Goldman Sachs Group Investment Research report. After all, David Kostin, Goldman Sachs Group's chief stock strategist, has been super optimistic. But the super-optimistic David Kostin has changed its attitude more quickly this year, lowering its annual target for the S & P 500 twice, from 5100 to 4900 to 4700.

Goldman Sachs Group's financial call to investors is now over, but unfortunately no investors are discussing the bank's stock sell-off. Three quarters ago, some analysts raised questions about Goldman Sachs Group's efforts to reduce his equity portfolio, when the bank said it had "made progress in improving capital efficiency and was actively managing its equity position. Especially when the environment is favourable. "

What exactly did Goldman Sachs Group want to express at that time? According to the explanation of its behavior: when the financial environment is still relatively loose, actively sell a large number of selling stocks!

When was the last time Goldman Sachs Group actively sold shares to the "supportive" market? It was 2007 and 2008, when Goldman Sachs Group was busy creating CDO, and his trading department would "actively" short these CDO.