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2  GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. v. ARKANSAS TEACHER 

RETIREMENT SYSTEM 
Opinion of the Court 

misrepresentations.  For its part, Goldman sought to defeat
class  certification  by  rebutting  the  Basic  presumption 
through evidence that its alleged misrepresentations actu-
ally  had  no  impact  on  its  stock  price.  After  determining
that  Goldman  had  failed  to  carry  its  burden  of  proving  a 
lack of price impact, the District Court certified the class, 
and the Second Circuit affirmed. 

In  this  Court,  Goldman  argues  that  the  Second  Circuit
erred twice: first, by holding that the generic nature of its 
alleged misrepresentations is irrelevant to the price impact 
inquiry;  and  second,  by  assigning  Goldman  the  burden  of
persuasion to prove a lack of price impact.

On  the  first  question,  the  parties  now  agree,  as  do  we, 
that the generic nature of a misrepresentation often is im-
portant evidence of price impact that courts should consider 
at class certification.  Because we conclude that the Second 
Circuit  may  not  have  properly  considered  the  generic  na-
ture  of  Goldman’s  alleged  misrepresentations,  we  vacate 
and remand for the Court of Appeals to reassess the District 
Court’s  price  impact  determination.    On  the  second  ques-
tion, we agree with the Second Circuit that our precedents 
require  defendants  to  bear  the  burden  of  persuasion  to
prove a lack of price impact by a preponderance of the evi-
dence.  We emphasize, though, that the burden of persua-
sion should rarely be outcome determinative. 

I 
A 
Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and
its implementing regulation, Rule 10b–5, prohibit material
misrepresentations  and  omissions  in  connection  with  the
sale  of  securities.    48  Stat.  881,  as  amended,  15  U. S. C. 
§78j(b); 17 CFR §240.10b–5 (2020).  We have inferred from 
these provisions an implied private cause of action permit-
ting the recovery of damages for securities fraud.  Hallibur-
ton  Co.  v.  Erica  P.  John  Fund,  Inc.,  573  U. S.  258,  267