They didn’t sell a little bit. They sold a large chunk of their position—43.7%. That is a major move. A reason for not dumping everything, if GS did know of problems with the well, is obvious: uncertainty. Might be a serious problem there, might not. They didn’t know what would happen but suspected something might. They weighed it.
Nothing odd about any of this. I get suspicious when people start making the case a “conspiracy” is being alleged and mock those who express interest in the dumping of shares by GS. That makes me think there might be something more than just a prudent business move motivated by publicly available information.
What is most damning from the information available now is not that GS sold so much of its BP holdings but that it moved BP from a “Neutral” to a “Buy” just before it dumped over a quarter of a billion dollars worth of BP stock. That is scummy. Absolutely scummy. But that is what GS is known for so I guess anyone who got suckered had it coming.
True, anyone buying or selling based on analyst estimates on the street is just asking to get suckered. But no, if they knew something about the well they would have sold the majority of shares and maintained the minority to hedge. If they were really so blood sucking as to know about the well before hand why would we think they wouldn’t squeeze every cent of profit out of the deal?