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2  GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. v. ARKANSAS TEACHER 

RETIREMENT SYSTEM 
SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

sentations.”  Ante, at 8.  On appeal, Goldman did not con-
tend that the District Court improperly refused to consider 
the generic nature of the alleged misstatements as evidence
of price impact (or lack thereof ).  Instead, Goldman argued
that “general statements, like those challenged here, are in-
capable of impacting a company’s stock price as a matter of
law”  because  they  are  “ ‘too  general  to  cause  a reasonable 
investor  to  rely  upon  them.’ ”  Brief  for  Appellants  in
No. 18–3667 (CA2), pp. 43, 46.  Goldman reasoned that “the 
challenged statements are incapable of maintaining infla-
tion in a stock price for the same reasons that those state-
ments are immaterial as a matter of law (as well as fact).” 
Id., at 48. 

The  Second  Circuit  properly  rejected  Goldman’s  argu-
ment.  The court explained that although “Goldman is not 
formally  asking  for  a  materiality  test,”  its  proposed  rule
would  “essentially  requir[e]  courts  to  ask”  at  the  class- 
certification stage “whether the alleged misstatements are,
in Goldman’s words, ‘immaterial as a matter of law.’ ”  955 
F. 3d 254, 267 (2020).  But “materiality is irrelevant at the 
Rule 23 stage.”  Id., at 268 (citing Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut 
Retirement  Plans  and  Trust  Funds,  568  U. S.  455,  468 
(2013)).  “If general statements cannot maintain price infla-
tion  because  no  reasonable  investor  would  have  relied  on 
them, then the question of inactionable generality is com-
mon to the class.”  955 F. 3d, at 268. 

In  declining  to  adopt  Goldman’s  proposed  rule  that  ge-
neric misstatements cannot have a price impact (as a mat-
ter  of  law),  the  Second  Circuit  nowhere  held  that  the  ge-
neric nature of an alleged misstatement could not serve as
evidence of price impact (as a matter of fact).  Nor did the 
Second Circuit refuse to consider such evidence in affirming 
the District Court’s finding that Goldman failed to rebut the 
Basic presumption.  The Court nevertheless reads a hand-
ful  of  sentences  in  the  Second  Circuit’s  opinion  to  create