Goldman Sachs says investors have returned to normal dollar holdings

Goldman Sachs President John Waldron says the recent dip in investors holding US dollars is a return to normal levels and not a mass exit from the American currency. In an interview with Reuters, the said the change was a “lightening up,” doing that investors are trimming the additional dollars they took on earlier.Financial markets have opened since April 2, when President Donald Trump announced fresh tariffs on several trading partners. The “Liberation Day” caused a drop in US asset holdings. The White House has since struck deals that eased some tension, but the early shock left its mark. Before the tariff move, many clients were backing the United States to outpace the rest of the world.After April 2, those same clients rebalanced their holdings, mainly through currency trades. “The lightning we’ve seen is more the excess coming out, not a wholesale run for the gates,” Waldron explained. He added that investors have not yet decided that faster‐changing U.S. policy means they must cut holdings further.“Is there a sense that the volatility of U.S. policymaking is higher, and therefore we should be reducing our holdings? We haven’t seen that yet,” he said. Waldron joined Goldman’s board of directors earlier this year, and the post came only weeks after he received a retention bonus, a sign he could one day succeed Chief Executive David Solomon.Goldman Sachs says demand for Chinese stocks remains strongWaldron stressed that American financial companies can still work in China even as the two governments have disagreements. “I wouldn’t overstate the challenges between the two governments in terms of our ability to operate,” he said. “We can operate. The American firms are operating.”Companies, meanwhile, are studying how higher tariffs affect costs. “How much of this are we going to pass through on price? How much of this are we going to push back on our suppliers? Who’s going to bear the brunt of these tariffs? And the answer is it will be shared,” Waldron observed.The tariff problem has also slowed mergers and acquisitions. “If you were working on an M&A transaction, you were getting started on it or you were getting into it, you’re probably pausing it,” Waldron said. Yet deals that are almost finished may still close. “If you were at the five‐yard line and you were getting close to announcing it and it’s not overly impacted by tariffs, you’re probably going to go ahead and do it, and we’ve seen both,” he explained.Goldman Sachs is advising Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison on selling most of its $22.8 billion ports business to U.S. firm BlackRock, sources said earlier. On a wider scale, the number of M&A contracts announced worldwide fell in April to the lowest level in more than 20 years, Dealogic data show.The post Goldman Sachs says investors have returned to normal dollar holdings first appeared on Coinfea.