It depends. Goldman is largely a market maker - they get called out on things like this because their research division says one thing while their investment div. does another. Two separate units. I think you are referring to prop trading pre-2015. And that is the issue with a lot of larger institutions - they have too many business units that pose conflicts of interest. It was the primary motive for killing prop trading with the Volcker rule - all that remains today is delta one and similar strategies, which basically just captures a spread. They get around the rule by maintaining "relatively" neutral books.