Since Friday, there has been an avalanche of sales of blocks of shares by Goldman Sachs and other banks, including Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, on behalf of a client. Investments at knock-down prices that have, for example, made ViacomCBS or Discovery collapse by 27%. However, these movements did not destabilize the markets for the time being, a sign of particularly high investor confidence, which in other times would have been moved by the sums at stake.

The hedge fund Archegos, linked to financier Bill Hwang, was allegedly the mysterious seller. Bloomberg revealed today that the fund had been forced by its lenders to close out more than $20 billion in positions, describing the deal as "one of the biggest margin calls of all time. Hwang, who was previously convicted of insider trading in the Tiger Asia Management case, was apparently a fan of highly leveraged trades. It is not yet known why the banks rushed to sell in the market to this extent. In trying to reduce their exposure at breakneck speed, they have in any case caused quite a mess.

Bloomberg is cutting Goldman Sachs some slack by pointing out that the bank refused to work with Bill Hwang until 2018 because of his past. Credit Suisse, also involved in this case, could have probably done without a new negative publicity after the Greensill case. The Swiss bank has just announced that it would probably have to incur losses due to "the liquidation of positions in a US-based hedge fund". The same explanation for Nomura, whose share price fell by 16% this morning in Tokyo for identical reasons..

Shares in Morgan Stanley are down 5% after the Financial Times reported it sold billions of shares, while Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo & Co dropped between 1.6% and 2.5%.

Meanwhile, the usual quarterly assessment is approaching for the world's stock market indexes, most of which continued to rise at the beginning of the year, to the point where some reached levels higher than before the first lockdown.

The container ship Ever Given, which was blocking the Suez Canal, is now floating again, thanks to the human resources deployed and a favorable tidal coefficient. After six days of congestion, the 370 ships that were waiting to cross the canal will gradually resume their journey. The blockage of the canal paralyses about 25% of trade between Europe and Asia, according to specialists. Bypassing Africa takes 7 to 10 days on a journey of about 30 days. Fortunately, the paralysis will not have lasted more than a week, which will not prevent the port and logistics infrastructure from being heavily used in the coming days to manage this massive influx. The most unfavorable economic scenario seems to have been averted.

 

Economic highlights of the day

There will be no major macroeconomic indicators today.

The euro remains under pressure at USD 1.1778. The ounce of gold is down to USD 1724. Oil is down 2% to USD 63.8 for Brent and USD 60.3 for WTI. The yield on US debt is up to 1.65% over 10 years. Bitcoin is up to USD 58,000.

 

On Markets:

* Ford Motor announced on Thursday that production of its F150 pickup truck at a Michigan plant will be halted until Sunday due to a global shortage of semiconductors.

* Nio, The Chinese electric carmaker listed on the New York Stock Exchange announced on Friday that it will suspend production at its Hefei plant for five days due to a shortage of semiconductors. The share price is down 7% in pre-market trading.

* Moderna postponed the delivery of 590,400 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Canada due to a delay in the quality control process, the Canadian government announced Thursday.

* WeWork announced plans to go public via a merger with SPAC BowX Acquisition, a deal valuing it at $9 billion (€7.6 billion).

* L Brands is up 5.5% in pre-market trading after raising its growth forecast for the current quarter.

* Gamestop, at the heart of a months-long battle between retail investors and short sellers, jumped more than 50% in premarket trading. KOSS (+57%) and AMC (+22%), also affected by the phenomenon, follow the movement.