Look, I'm not hyperbolic like many schmoes on here. Heck, I'm the boring $DGX DD guy. But something MASSIVE potentially just happened today involving Norges Bank (central bank of Norway). I am 99% sure they divested from multiple (possibly all?) US stock holdings at the closing bell today. No, I don't know what this means….but I do know there is breaking news TODAY regarding a US military plane going down in NORWAY during “planned” NATO exercises. Maybe just a coincidence, but this divestiture is big news regardless of the cause anyway.
For context, Norges Bank holds (or held) very substantial positions in multiple US staples. One of which is Verizon $VZ at $2 BILLION, making them one of the largest shareholders period. Another company is Colgate $CL where they were in for $700m. Basically Norges owned 1% of both of these companies, which is certainly a material amount.
So how did I figure all this out? Keeping it as brief as possible so I don't spend my entire Friday night on reddit. In the last 5 minutes of trading today, $VZ volume went through the roof out of nowhere and the stock dropped an additional 2%. All happened in literally a few minutes. This isn't normal obviously. No one seemed to know who, why, or what caused it so I start looking for other companies with similar movement today. I quickly notice Colgate had the exact same thing happen at the exact same time as Verizon. Now I'm interested. This is two companies in entirely different spaces and both are relatively safe defensive dividend stocks with ZERO news on the day.
So I go look at institutional filings for both $VZ and $CL. What do ya know? Norges Bank's previously listed shares tie practically perfectly to the abrupt volume spike for both Verizon and Colgate. Norges Bank divested entirely from enormous positions in these companies. They did it suddenly and in a kneejerk move because no institution or fund would unwind positions of that size all at once. You are guaranteed to take the largest loss possible doing this / hurt your value.
They may have divested from multiple other companies as well, but I haven't had a chance to dive deeper. The question is why? Did they get underwater in another position? Margin called? Geopolitics? That's for reddit to decide….and me when I have more time to dive in.
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