The forced liquidation of the Archegos Capital position contributes to Viacom, the Discovery dive

Part of the severe pressure to sell selected US media stocks and Chinese ADRs on the Internet on Friday was due to the forced liquidation of positions held by the billion-dollar family’s office, Archegos Capital Management, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.

Archegos Capital was founded by former Tiger Management analyst Bill Hwang.

ViacomCBS and Discovery, which made massive gains this year, came under unusually heavy selling pressure at the end of this week and are said to be at least two of the shares in question, along with Chinese Internet names Baidu. , Tencent, Vipshop and more.

ViacomCBS and Discovery closed more than 27% on Friday, with Viacom down more than 50% for the week, while Discovery fell 45%. The companies were short-circuited in the context of investors’ skepticism about their long-term prospects in a crowded media landscape.

For the week, Baidu fell by more than 18%, Tencent by more than 33% and Vipshop by more than 31%.

CNBC contacted Archegos Capital, but the calls and emails were not returned. The source said that the forced sales are probably related to margin calls due to the strongly leveraged positions.

CNBC also learned that Teng Yue Partners, an Asia-focused fund led by another former Tiger Management analyst, Tao Li, has been adversely affected by the pullback in several of its key holdings. Although the fund was said to have fallen in March, the YTD was still positive, according to the source.

CNBC also contacted Teng Yue.

– CNIE’s Leslie Picker contributed to this report.