Goldman Sachs Prices a Bet on MicroStrategy Paying 22.8% a Year, If Bitcoin Cooperates

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• GS Finance Corp., guaranteed by The Goldman Sachs Group, filed a 424B2 pricing supplement on October 14, 2026 for an auto-callable note tied to Strategy Inc. stock, with an original issue date of October 15
• The note pays a contingent coupon of 22.8% per year, but only on months when Strategy’s stock closes at or above 60% of its $154.34 starting price
• Goldman’s own filing explicitly describes Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, as “a Bitcoin treasury company” whose stock is heavily influenced by Bitcoin’s historically volatile price swings

GS Finance Corp., with payments guaranteed by The Goldman Sachs Group, priced a new structured note on October 14, 2026 built around the stock of Strategy Inc., the company formerly known as MicroStrategy that has become synonymous with corporate bitcoin treasury strategies. The note, formally titled a Market Linked Security, Auto-Callable with Contingent Coupon with Memory Feature, sets a starting price of $154.34 based on Strategy’s closing price on the October 9 pricing date, with an original issue date of October 15, 2026 and a stated maturity of October 12, 2029.

The note’s headline feature is its contingent coupon: investors can earn $19 per $1,000 of face value each month, equivalent to 22.8% annually, but only if Strategy’s stock closes at or above 60% of its starting price, roughly $92.60, on that month’s calculation day. A memory feature softens the all-or-nothing structure somewhat, allowing any missed coupon payments to be paid later, without additional interest, once the stock closes back above the threshold on a subsequent calculation day.

Beyond the coupon mechanics, the note carries an auto-call feature that could end it early. Starting in January 2027 and continuing monthly through September 2029, if Strategy’s stock closes at or above its original $154.34 starting price on any call date, the note is automatically called, returning investors their full $1,000 per note plus a final coupon and any previously unpaid coupons. If the note runs to its full 2029 maturity without being called, investors face real downside risk: should the stock’s ending price fall below the $92.60 downside threshold, they receive $1,000 multiplied by the stock’s percentage decline from the starting price, meaning they could lose more than 40%, and potentially all, of their original investment, with no participation in any stock price appreciation beyond the fixed coupon payments.

Goldman priced the note’s estimated value at approximately $968 per $1,000 of face value at the time of pricing, below the $1,000 offering price, a gap the filing attributes to underwriting discounts and structuring and distribution costs baked into the product. Notably, the filing itself states plainly that “according to publicly available information, Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy Incorporated) is a Bitcoin treasury company,” explicitly flagging for investors that the stock’s performance is likely to track Bitcoin’s own historically volatile price movements rather than behaving like a typical operating company’s shares.

The product adds to a growing lineup of Wall Street structured products built around bitcoin treasury company stocks, giving institutional and retail investors a way to express views on names like Strategy without directly holding bitcoin or the underlying equity itself. The 424B2 pricing supplement, filed with the SEC, carries the CUSIP identifier 40058MB31 and an offering price of $1,000 per note.