“Fast forward to today, when the infamous “harvesting” slide is back if with some adjustments. First, Goldman no longer uses YE20 as the starting point for its asset sales bridge, and instead has picked YE19 as the starting reference. Back then the bank had some $22 billion in equity investments, $2BN more than the $20BN at YE 20.

What we find next is that unlike last quarter when the bank showed it has sold a whopping $5.5BN in stocks in the first half of 2021 (excluding a modest $1.5BN in purchases), this time the bank went even bolder and sold a total of $16 Billion (presumably split between equities and debt, although whoever did the chart forgot to add the table). This number was offset by $5 billion in equity additions, for a total Net Dispositions amount of $11 billion, or “harvesting” since the bank’s 2020 Investor Day.

Who is Goldman selling to? Anyone who will buy, but here we would wager that retail investors – who have been on tilt buying in 2021 – have been the proud recipients of billions in Goldman sales. This, in the financial literature is called the “distribution phase.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/goldman-lost-820mm-trading-stocks-q2-it-quietly-liquidating-billions-investments