Goldman Sachs shares gain for a second straight session on Tuesday, bank to launch share trading hub in Paris to avoid post-Brexit disruption

A stock trading hub will be launched in Paris by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS), the bank said on Tuesday, as it seeks to avoid disruption to clients after Britain fully parts ways with the European Union on December 31st.

Goldman Sachs shares closed higher for a second consecutive trading session in New York on Tuesday. It has also been the sharpest single-session gain since November 9th. The stock went up 3.79% ($8.67) to $237.50, after touching an intraday high at $238.09, or a price level not seen since February 14th ($239.01).

Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc have risen 3.29% so far in 2020 compared with a 12.52% gain for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).

In 2019, Goldman Sachs Group’s stock went up 37.64%, thus, it outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 28.88% gain.

The Wall Street bank intends to launch the SIGMA X Europe platform in Paris before January 4th 2021. It is expected to trade stocks listed in 15 European markets, while its existing hub in the UK is to keep trading UK and European shares.

“We want to ensure that our clients continue to have access to all of our key liquidity sources post-Brexit,” Liz Martin, Goldman Sachs’s global co-head of futures and equities electronic trading, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Britain had said that UK investors would be allowed to keep operating with stock trading platforms based in the EU from January.

At the same time, EU officials had said that EU investors would have to use a platform based within the bloc in order to trade Euro-denominated stocks.

Therefore, major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs need to maintain a foothold in both the EU and the UK.

Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation

According to CNN Money, the 24 analysts, offering 12-month forecasts regarding Goldman Sachs’s stock price, have a median target of $252.50, with a high estimate of $348.00 and a low estimate of $200.00. The median estimate represents a 6.32% upside compared to the closing price of $237.50 on November 24th.

The same media also reported that at least 16 out of 26 surveyed investment analysts had rated Goldman Sachs’s stock as “Buy”, while 10 – as “Hold”.