Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, West Virginia Investment Management Board, Plumbers and Pipefitters Pension Group, Plaintiffs-Appellees Pension Funds, Ilene Richman, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Pablo Elizondo, Thomas Draft, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs Howard Sorkin, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Tikva Bochner, Individually and on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Dr. Ehsan Afshani, Louis Gold, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Consolidated Plaintiffs v. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Lloyd C. Blankfein, David A. Viniar, Gary D. Cohn, Defendants-Appellants Sarah E. Smith, Consolidated Defendant† Shareholders of Defendant-Appellant Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. brought this class action lawsuit against Goldman and several of its former executives, claiming defendants committed securities fraud in violation of §10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by misrepresenting Goldman’s ability to manage conflicts of interest in its business practices. After a number of appeals and subsequent remands, including an appeal to the Supreme Court, the district court once again certified a shareholder class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). For the reasons that follow, we reverse the district court’s class certification decision with instructions to decertify the class. Judge Sullivan concurs in the result in a separate opinion. RICHARD WESLEY, C.J. This class certification dispute has been laboring in federal court for nearly a decade. It raises challenging questions about how defendants in securities fraud class actions, having lost a motion to dismiss, can rebut the legal presumption of reliance established in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988), at the class certification stage. The case is before us again: for a third time, the district court certified, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), a shareholder class, and, for a third time, we granted defendants leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal of that order under Rule 23(f). Some context is required at the outset. The Basic presumption excuses classes of securities fraud plaintiffs from proving that each class member individually relied upon a defendant’s alleged misrepresentations. Courts can instead presume that stock trading in an efficient market incorporates into its price all public, material information — including material misrepresentations — and that investors rely on the integrity of the market price when they choose to buy or sell that stock. At the same time, defendants can rebut the presumption and defeat class certification by demonstrating, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the misrepresentations did not actually affect, or impact, the market price of the stock. This legal terrain under Basic is familiar, and, in this appeal, uncontested. From there, however, the journey becomes difficult. Analyzing whether a defendant has proved a lack of price impact is complicated by the fact that a misrepresentation can affect a stock’s price either by causing the stock to trade at an inflated price, or as is alleged here, by maintaining inflation that is already built into the stock price. See In re Vivendi, S.A. Sec. Litig., 838 F.3d 223, 258 (2d Cir. 2016). In the latter scenario, the misrepresentation prevents preexisting inflation in a stock price from dissipating, but does not cause a price uptick. Instead, the back-end price drop — what happens when the truth is finally disclosed — operates as an indirect proxy for the front-end inflation, or the amount that the misrepresentation fraudulently propped up the stock price. Simply put, the theory goes: back-end price drop equals front-end inflation. Fair enough. But what happens when the match between the contents of the price-propping misrepresentation and the truth-revealing corrective disclosure is tenuous? Consider two examples. In the first, an automobile manufacturer’s earlier statement to the market that its best-selling vehicle passed all safety tests is followed by later news that, in fact, the car failed several crash tests. A price drop follows. There, the earlier statement is precisely negated, or rendered false, by the later news — a clean match. In the second example, however, the same back-end news (and the same price drop) is instead preceded by the manufacturer’s statement to the market that it strives to ensure that all its vehicles are road-ready, that it has an elaborate testing protocol to that effect, but that the task is tall, the goal difficult to achieve. There, it is less apparent the market would understand the later news of failed crash tests revealed that, in fact, there was no protocol, or that, in fact, the manufacturer did not seek to make its automobiles safe to drive. The match between the more specific “corrective disclosure” and the earlier, more generic statement is on shakier ground. Can courts still infer that the back-end price drop equals the front-end inflation? The Supreme Court answered that commonsense question. It explained that the “inference [] that the back-end price drop equals front-end inflation [] starts to break down” when the earlier misrepresentation is generic and the later corrective disclosure is specific, and that, “[u]nder those circumstances it is less likely that the specific disclosure actually corrected the generic misrepresentation….” Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. v. Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. (Goldman), 141 S. Ct. 1951, 1961 (2021). Following Goldman, courts are now directed to compare, at the class certification stage, the relative genericness of a misrepresentation with its corrective disclosure, notwithstanding that such evidence is often also highly relevant to the closely related merits question of whether the misrepresentation would have been material to a shareholder’s investment calculus — which, under other Supreme Court guidance, a court may not resolve at class certification. See Amgen Inc. v. Conn. Ret. Plans & Tr. Funds, 568 U.S. 455 (2013). In short, Goldman’s mismatch framework requires careful trekking: district courts must analyze the price impact issue without drawing what might appear to be obvious conclusions for off-limits merits questions such as materiality. As Judge Hamilton, writing for the Seventh Circuit, put it, courts must analyze this issue “without…thinking about a pink elephant.” In re Allstate Corp. Sec. Litig, 966 F.3d 595, 602 (7th Cir. 2020). The question in this case is whether, in applying the Supreme Court’s mismatch framework, the district court clearly erred in finding that Goldman failed to rebut the Basic presumption by a preponderance of the evidence, and, therefore, abused its discretion by certifying the shareholder class. It did. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s order and remand with instructions to the district court to decertify the class. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background The facts underlying this lawsuit have been discussed at length in our prior opinions, see, e.g., Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. (ATRS I), 879 F.3d 474, 478 (2d Cir. 2018), but are nonetheless recounted here. Plaintiffs-appellees are individuals and institutions who acquired shares in The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. between February 5, 2007, and June 10, 2010 (the “Class Period”). Their claims are being pursued by three pension funds — the lead plaintiffs — each of which acquired Goldman common stock within the same period. Plaintiffs filed a consolidated class action complaint in July 2011 against Goldman and a handful of its former executives (collectively, “Goldman” or “defendants”), accusing Goldman of violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. See 15 U.S.C. §78j(b); 17 C.F.R. §240.10b-5. Plaintiffs allege defendants made material misrepresentations about Goldman’s business practices and its approach to conflicts-of-interest management. The Challenged Statements The alleged misrepresentations generally fall into two categories. First, plaintiffs point to statements relating to Goldman’s business principles, which were included in the company’s annual report to shareholders and made by Goldman executives at various conferences: We are dedicated to complying fully with the letter and spirit of the laws, rules and ethical principles that govern us. Our continued success depends upon unswerving adherence to this standard. Most importantly, and the basic reason for our success, is our extraordinary focus on our clients. Our clients’ interests always come first. Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow. Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business. Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 97. Second, plaintiffs challenge statements contained in the “Risk Factors” portion of Goldman’s Form 10-K, filed every year during the Class Period with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”), concerning the management of conflicts of interest. With respect to this conflicts disclosure, plaintiffs focus on the emphasized language below: Conflicts of interest are increasing and a failure to appropriately identify and deal with conflicts of interest could adversely affect our businesses. Our reputation is one of our most important assets. As we have expanded the scope of our businesses and our client base, we increasingly have to address potential conflicts of interest, including situations where our services to a particular client or our own proprietary investments or other interests conflict, or are perceived to conflict, with the interests of another client, as well as situations where one or more of our businesses have access to material non-public information that may not be shared with other businesses within the firm. The SEC, the NYSE, FINRA, other federal and state regulators and regulators outside the United States, including in the United Kingdom and Japan, have announced their intention to increase their scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest, including through detailed examinations of specific transactions. There have been complaints filed against financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, alleging the violation of antitrust laws arising from their joint participation in certain leveraged buyouts, referred to as “club deals,” as discussed under “Legal Proceedings — Private Equity-Sponsored Acquisitions Litigation” in Part I, Item 3 of the Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, a number of class action complaints have also been filed in connection with certain specific “club deal” transactions which name the relevant “club deal” participants among the defendants, including Goldman Sachs affiliates in several cases, and generally allege that the transactions constitute a breach of fiduciary duty by the target company and that the “club” participants aided and abetted such breach. We cannot predict the outcome of the litigation to which we are a party, and we may become subject to further litigation or regulatory scrutiny in the future in this regard. We have extensive procedures and controls that are designed to identify and address conflicts of interest, including those designed to prevent the improper sharing of information among our businesses. However, appropriately identifying and dealing with conflicts of interest is complex and difficult, and our reputation could be damaged and the willingness of clients to enter into transactions in which such a conflict might arise may be affected if we fail, or appear to fail, to identify and deal appropriately with conflicts of interest. In addition, potential or perceived conflicts could give rise to litigation or enforcement actions. J.A. 3278 (emphasis added).1 It is undisputed that the challenged statements did not cause statistically significant increases in Goldman’s stock price. Instead, plaintiffs say, the statements maintained an already-inflated stock price. According to plaintiffs, that balloon popped when news of undisclosed conflicts of interest revealed the falsity of the challenged statements and caused the stock to drop. The Corrective Disclosures Specifically, plaintiffs target three dates in 2010 when they claim the false nature of the business principles and conflicts disclosure statements was revealed to the market. Broadly, they focus on what they characterize as the disclosure of concealed conflicts of interest infecting several collateralized debt obligation (“CDO”) transactions involving subprime mortgages. In essence, they allege that, publicly, Goldman touted various CDOs as long-term investment opportunities to investors when, in fact, Goldman was betting on them to fail. First, and featured most heavily throughout this litigation, on April 16, 2010, the SEC initiated an enforcement action against Goldman and one of its employees regarding a CDO transaction known as Abacus 2007 AC-1 (the “Abacus Complaint”). See generally Press Release, SEC, Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO (July 15, 2010), https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm. The SEC accused Goldman and its employee of committing securities fraud. It targeted Goldman’s failure to disclose in its marketing materials to various institutional customers that the hedge fund Paulson & Co. played an active role in the CDO’s asset selection process, and for telling those investors that Paulson held a long interest in the Abacus CDO when, in fact, Paulson was short. The next day, Goldman’s stock price declined 12.79 percent from $184.27 to $160.70 per share. Second, on April 30, 2010, Goldman’s stock price dropped another 9.39 percent following a report from The Wall Street Journal that Goldman was under investigation by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for its purported role in unspecified CDOs. Finally, on June 10, 2010, various media outlets reported that the SEC was investigating Goldman’s conduct in another transaction, Hudson Mezzanine Funding 2006; a further 4.52 percent decline in the price of Goldman stock followed. Neither the DOJ nor the SEC took further action related to the second two corrective disclosures. As to the first corrective disclosure, the Abacus Complaint culminated in a consent judgment under which Goldman agreed to pay $550 million, and, without “admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint…acknowledge[d]” that the Abacus marketing materials were “ incomplete” and that it was a “mistake” for Goldman to state that the reference portfolio was “selected by” ACA Management LLC “without disclosing the role of Paulson.” J.A. 665. In plaintiffs’ view, these corrective disclosures revealed to the market that Goldman’s statements about its conflicts management practices and business principles were false. Goldman, they say, lied about having extensive practices and procedures in place to manage its conflicts of interest, or otherwise knowingly failed to disclose mishaps in their conflicts protocol.2 As a result of Goldman’s fraud, plaintiffs claim that they lost over $13 billion. B. Litigation History 1. Goldman’s Motion to Dismiss Much of the early action in this case proceeded in line with a typical securities litigation. Following the filing of plaintiffs’ complaint, Goldman moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 9(b) and 12(b)(6). In pertinent part, it pressed a materiality argument: the alleged misrepresentations, Goldman argued, were too vague and general for a reasonable shareholder to have relied on them in determining the value of Goldman’s stock. Thus, it continued, those statements did not influence plaintiffs’ investment decision-making, and any loss they suffered was unrelated to them. The district court saw it differently. Although it agreed that some of Goldman’s statements were immaterial as a matter of law — and dismissed the complaint to the extent it relied upon those statements — it held that the business principles and conflicts statements were not “so obviously unimportant to a reasonable investor” as to be immaterial as a matter of law. Richman v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc., 868 F. Supp. 2d 261, 271, 280 (S.D.N.Y. 2012). With respect to those statements, the district court denied Goldman’s motion to dismiss, and thereafter denied Goldman’s motions for reconsideration of, and an interlocutory appeal from, that order. See In re Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 10 Civ. 3461, 2014 WL 2815571, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2014) (reconsideration); In re Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 10 Civ. 3461, 2014 WL 5002090, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 7, 2014) (interlocutory appeal). 2. Class Certification Having survived defendants’ threshold attack, plaintiffs moved to certify a class of shareholder plaintiffs. Class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 is dictated by certain requirements, many of which are not at issue here. To the point, Goldman did not dispute that (1) the named plaintiffs’ class is so numerous that joinder is impracticable, (2) at least one question of law or fact is common to the class, (3) the class representatives’ claims are typical of the class wide claims, and (4) the class representatives, here, the pension funds, will be able to fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a). Goldman did, however, maintain that plaintiffs failed to satisfy Rule 23′s additional hurdle for classes primarily seeking money damages. That requirement, set forth in Rule 23(b)(3), demands that common questions of law or fact predominate over individual questions that pertain only to certain class members. In this lawsuit, Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement has been, and in this appeal remains, center stage. Under the Rule, analysis of whether questions of law or fact common to class members predominate “begins, of course, with the…underlying cause of action.” Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co. (Halliburton I), 563 U.S. 804, 809 (2011). Like many securities scrap-ups, the parties here join issue on the element of reliance — that is, whether plaintiffs relied upon the alleged misrepresentations.3 As previewed above, to satisfy their class certification obligation of demonstrating class-wide reliance, plaintiffs invoked the Basic presumption, asking the district court to presume that all class members relied upon defendants’ misstatements, as reflected in its price, in choosing to buy Goldman stock.4 Again, Basic rests on what is referred to as the “fraud-on-the-market” theory — that a stock trading on theoretically efficient markets like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, incorporates all public, material information, including material misrepresentations, into its share price. Basic, 485 U.S. at 246. More simply, the misrepresentation — the fraud — is “on the market.” See id. Without the Basic presumption, classes pursuing claims of securities fraud would face the onerous task of demonstrating each class member was aware of, and bought the company’s stock based on, an alleged misrepresentation. That burden would splinter classes along class member-specific lines, undermining the purpose of the class action device, and all but dooming securities claims from proceeding under Rule 23. Basic is therefore a saving grace for classes: they need not directly prove that the defendant’s statements impacted its share price. Instead, satisfaction of Basic’s prerequisites serves as an “indirect proxy” for a showing of price impact. See Halliburton II, 573 U.S. at 278-81. Importantly, however, the presumption is rebuttable. “[A]n indirect proxy should not preclude…a defendant’s direct, more salient evidence showing that the alleged misrepresentation did not actually affect the stock’s market price and, consequently, that the Basic presumption does not apply.” Id. at 281-82 (emphasis added). Throughout what the district court aptly characterized as a “prolonged interlocutory appeals saga,” In re Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. Sec. Litig., 579 F. Supp. 3d 520, 522 (S.D.N.Y. 2021), Goldman has steadfastly attempted to do just that. a. Round One: Goldman’s First Appeal In its initial response to plaintiffs’ Rule 23 motion, Goldman laid the groundwork for the evidence that, in the present appeal, it continues to rely on to show an absence of price impact. Goldman introduced, first, an event study5 conducted by its chief price impact expert, Dr. Paul Gompers, demonstrating that the business principles statements and conflicts disclosure did not cause a significant uptick in Goldman’s stock price. Second, Goldman identified 36 dates — all prior to the corrective disclosure dates — on which media outlets discussed, in varying degrees of detail, transactions which, according to the reports, raised questions about Goldman’s ability to manage conflicts of interest. Goldman’s view on the significance of these pre-disclosure reports was fleshed out by Dr. Gompers. He explained that the pre-disclosure reports implicated the same topics covered by the challenged statements and, just like plaintiffs’ alleged corrective disclosures, called the reliability of the challenged statements into question. Building from there, Dr. Gompers opined that because these pre-disclosure reports — viewed by him as alternative corrective disclosures — caused no statistically significant price decrease, the price drop that did occur following plaintiffs’ offered corrective disclosures must have been caused by something other than any corrective effect that they had upon the challenged statements. Goldman relied on another expert, Dr. Stephen Choi, to press an alternative explanation. Dr. Choi conducted an event study focusing on the first corrective disclosure, the April 2010 filing of the SEC’s Abacus Complaint. He pointed to qualities of that enforcement action — so-called “severity factors” — which, in his view, accounted for the entirety of the price decline that followed. To buttress that opinion, he identified four out of a group of 117 enforcement events bearing similar qualities, whose announcements to the market resulted in significant drops in those companies’ stock prices. Goldman relied on Dr. Choi’s submissions to argue that the price drop in April 2010 was caused entirely by the news of the enforcement action itself, rather than the revelation of Goldman’s client conflicts. Of course, plaintiffs countered defendants at every turn. They did so through their sole expert, Dr. John D. Finnerty, who, as discussed in more detail below, disputed the methods and conclusions of Goldman’s experts. The district court disagreed with Goldman and certified the class. See In re Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Securities Litig., No. 10 Civ. 3461, 2015 WL 5613150 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 24, 2015). In relevant part, the district court discredited Dr. Gompers’ event study, observing that under plaintiffs’ inflation-maintenance theory, the challenged statements could have maintained, rather than caused, an already inflated stock price. Id. at *6. It also declined to consider Goldman’s evidence regarding the pre-disclosure reports, concluding that such evidence was either “an inappropriate truth on the market defense” or an argument for materiality that the court “w[ould] not consider” at the class certification stage. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, it found Dr. Choi’s submissions unconvincing, explaining that alternative explanations regarding the cause of the price declines did not rule out that the corrective effect of each disclosure on the challenged statements may have been a contributing cause. Id. Ultimately, the district court held that while a defendant can rebut the Basic presumption by a preponderance of the evidence, Goldman had failed to do so because it did not provide “conclusive evidence that no link exists between the price decline [of Goldman's stock] and the misrepresentations.” Id. at *4 n.3, *7. ATRS I. The first time this case arrived at our doorstep, we vacated and remanded. Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. (ATRS I), 879 F.3d 474 (2d Cir. 2018). We held that defendants seeking to rebut the Basic presumption must do so by a preponderance of the evidence, and that it was unclear whether the district applied that standard. Id. at 485. Second, we held it was error for the district court to conclude that it could not consider the pre-disclosure reports. Id. We also encouraged the district court to hold an evidentiary hearing, which, in advance of its initial class certification decision, it had deemed unnecessary. Id. at 486. b. Round Two: We Affirm On remand, the district court received supplemental briefing, held a class certification evidentiary hearing, and, ultimately, certified the class a second time. In re Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 10 Civ. 3461, 2018 WL 3854757, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2018). Defendants called Drs. Gompers and Choi, who offered testimony in line with their expert submissions. Plaintiffs, meanwhile, called Dr. Finnerty, who, consistent with his submissions, offered rebuttals to defendants’ experts. In the end, the district court again credited Dr. Finnerty’s opinion that the alleged misrepresentations maintained an already-inflated stock price, finding that he had established a causal link between the alleged misrepresentations and the price decline following the three alleged corrective disclosures. Id. at *4. Defendants’ experts, it continued, did not sufficiently sever that link. In pertinent part, the district court distinguished the pre-disclosure reports from plaintiffs’ corrective disclosures; it found that although the former may have reported and suggested “Goldman’s conflicts in the ABACUS deal, the ABACUS Complaint was the first to detail it.” Id. at *4. Those details — and the fact that the charges were brought by Goldman’s principal regulator — “obviously rendered the [Abacus Complaint] more reliable and credible than any of the 36 media reports….” Id. As for Dr. Choi’s event study, the district court again largely discounted it. It noted that the study concerned only the Abacus Complaint, but not the second and third corrective disclosures, and that, in any event, the severity factors were arbitrary and not well-established methods of measurement. It concluded that defendants had failed to rebut the Basic presumption. Id. at *5-6. ATRS II. We granted Goldman leave to pursue another interlocutory appeal, and, ultimately, affirmed. See Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. (ATRS II), 955 F.3d 254 (2d Cir. 2020), cert. granted, 141 S. Ct. 950 (2020), and vacated and remanded, 141 S. Ct. 1951 (2021). That time, however, Goldman principally pressed a hardline rule: general statements, as a matter of law, are incapable of maintaining inflation in a stock price. Id. at 266. We disagreed; in our view, Goldman’s proposed rule too closely resembled a materiality analysis, which, as we then understood Supreme Court precedent, was off-limits at the class certification stage. Id. at 269. We also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in certifying the class. Id. at 274. Goldman primarily took issue with the district court’s analysis of the 36 dates of pre-disclosure reporting, but we found no clear error in the district court’s findings. Judge Sullivan dissented. He would have accorded more weight to those pre-disclosure reports, which he said demonstrated that when the market learned about Goldman’s conflicts, it did not negatively react. See id. at 278 (Sullivan, J., dissenting). In his view, “the generic quality of Goldman’s alleged misstatements, coupled with the undisputed fact that Goldman’s stock price did not move on any of the 36 dates on which the falsity of the alleged misstatements was revealed to the public, clearly compels the conclusion that the stock drop following the corrective disclosures was attributable to something other than the misstatements alleged in the complaint.” See id. at 278-79 (Sullivan, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). c. The Supreme Court’s Decision in Goldman The Supreme Court granted Goldman’s petition for certiorari. Before the Court, however, defendants abandoned their rule-based argument, and, notably, plaintiffs conceded that, as a factual matter, the generic nature of a misrepresentation often is important evidence of price impact that courts should consider at class certification. Goldman, 141 S. Ct. at 1958. Plaintiffs further conceded that courts can consider expert testimony and use “their common sense in assessing whether a generic misrepresentation had a price impact,” id. at 1960, and that such considerations are appropriate at class certification even though they might also be relevant to materiality, see id. As previewed above, the Court agreed with the parties, and offered guidance as to how genericness concerns should fit into cases proceeding under the inflation-maintenance theory of price impact. It acknowledged that, under the theory, courts generally look to the back-end price drop as a proxy for front-end inflation. However, the Court added: [T]hat final inference — that the back-end price drop equals front-end inflation — starts to break down when there is a mismatch between the contents of the misrepresentation and the corrective disclosure. That may occur when the earlier misrepresentation is generic (e.g., “we have faith in our business model”) and the later corrective disclosure is specific (e.g., “our fourth quarter earnings did not meet expectations”). Under those circumstances, it is less likely that the specific disclosure actually corrected the generic misrepresentation, which means that there is less reason to infer front-end price inflation — that is, price impact — from the back-end price drop. Goldman, 141 S. Ct. at 1961. As such, it explained, the “generic nature of a misrepresentation often will be important evidence of a lack of price impact, particularly in cases proceeding under the inflation-maintenance theory” id., and that is true “regardless whether that evidence is also relevant to a merits question like materiality,” id. at 1960. Concluding that it was unclear whether we considered that evidence, the Supreme Court vacated our judgment and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. See Goldman, 141 S. Ct. at 1963. ATRS III. Upon remand, we noted that in evaluating the parties’ competing price impact evidence, the district court did not discuss the generic nature of Goldman’s alleged misrepresentations, nor the submissions of a third Goldman expert, Dr. Laura Starks, relevant to that inquiry. Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. (ATRS III), 11 F.4th 138, 143 (2d Cir. 2021) (internal citation omitted). We concluded that the fact intensive questions raised by Goldman were better evaluated by the district court in the first instance. We vacated the district court’s order and remanded, directing the district court to “consider all record evidence relevant to price impact and apply the legal standard as supplemented by the Supreme Court.” Id. at 143-44. 3. Round Three: The Decision Below That brings us to the present appeal. On remand, the district court stayed the course and — in the decision Goldman now appeals — certified plaintiffs’ class for a third time. In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 520. Much of the evidence before the district court, as well as the district court’s analysis of it, should by now be familiar. Because it is discussed extensively below, it needs only brief mentioning here. On plaintiffs’ side of the ledger, the district court again found “persuasive[]” plaintiffs’ evidence establishing a link between (a) the revelatory nature of the corrective disclosures regarding Goldman’s conflicts of interest and (b) the subsequent stock price declines. Id. at 531. Specifically, it credited Dr. Finnerty’s focus on the “ conduct underlying the reported enforcement actions, not merely the actions themselves.” Id. at 532 (alteration omitted). Turning to defendants’ experts, the district court noted it had previously declined to credit Dr. Gompers’ opinion regarding the lack of abnormal price movement associated with the pre-disclosure reports, and reasoned that neither the Supreme Court’s nor our remand had any bearing on its previous findings. Thus, the district court “again decline[d] to credit Dr. Gompers’ conclusions.” Id. On the same tack, reconsideration of Dr. Choi’s event study did not alter the district court’s view of it, which remained “unaffected by the updated direction from above.” Id. It reiterated that “Dr. Choi’s methodology was novel, unreliable, and thoroughly outpaced by the conclusions he derived therefrom.” Id. The court then turned to “the heart of the parties’ post-appeal dispute: the extent of the alleged misstatements’ generic nature.” Id. at 533. Noting that defendants had abandoned their “‘genericness’-as-a-matter-of-law” test, it began by considering the genericness, “as a matter of fact,” of the challenged statements. Id. On this issue, the district court considered, for the first time, the opinions offered by Goldman’s expert, Dr. Laura Starks, as well as Dr. Finnerty’s rebuttals to them. In the end the district court sided with Dr. Finnerty, finding that the statements’ generic nature did not render them incapable of inducing investor reliance. See id. at 534. Finally, the district court applied the Supreme Court’s mismatch sliding scale and found that the alleged misstatements “are not so exceedingly more generic than the corrective disclosures that they vanquish the otherwise strong inference of price impact embedded in the evidentiary record.” Id. at 537. The “comfortable, though certainly not boundless, gap in genericness,” it explained, “fails to satisfy Defendants’ burden to demonstrate a complete lack of price impact attributable to the alleged misstatements.” Id. at 538. It certified the class. For a third time, we granted defendants leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal of that order. DISCUSSION “We review a district court’s grant of class certification for abuse of discretion,” Levitt v. J.P. Morgan Sec., Inc., 710 F.3d 454, 464 (2d Cir. 2013), reviewing de novo “the conclusions of law underlying that decision” and “‘for clear error the factual findings underlying’” its ruling, such as the court’s price impact determination, id. (quoting Teamsters Loc. 445 Freight Div. Pension Fund v. Bombardier Inc., 546 F.3d 196, 201 (2d Cir. 2008)). “Under the clear error standard, we may not reverse [a finding] even though convinced that had [we] been sitting as the trier of fact, [we] would have weighed the evidence differently.” Atl. Specialty Ins. Co. v. Coastal Envtl. Grp. Inc., 945 F.3d 53, 63 (2d Cir. 2019) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Rather, a finding is clearly erroneous only if although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also ATRS III, 11 F.4th at 142. Goldman presses three principal arguments on appeal. First, it contends the district court understated the genericness of the alleged misrepresentations and, in setting them against the more detailed corrective disclosures, failed to meaningfully apply the Supreme Court’s mismatch framework. Second, Goldman challenges the district court’s application of the inflation-maintenance theory; it claims that by using the price drop following the detailed, specific corrective disclosures as a proxy for the inflation-maintaining capacity of the broad, generic misrepresentations, the district court improperly extended the theory. These arguments have merit. Finally, though less forcefully this time around, Goldman maintains the district court again misweighed Dr. Gompers’ and Dr. Finnerty’s expert submissions, and in doing so made untenable credibility findings. We begin there, because although that argument does not carry the day, the district court’s analysis on this front gives important context to why we agree with Goldman’s first two arguments. In the end, the district court’s class certification decision cannot stand. I. The district court did not clearly err in rejecting defendants’ characterization of the 36 dates of pre-disclosure reporting as alternative corrective disclosure dates. Careful application of the Supreme Court’s guidance in Goldman requires a clear understanding of plaintiffs’ theory regarding the tie between the corrective disclosures and the alleged misrepresentations — why, according to them, there are grounds to infer that the back-end news actually corrected the front-end misstatements. The dueling submissions of Drs. Finnerty and Gompers regarding the significance of the 36 dates of pre-disclosure reporting bear directly on that issue. Although the two experts maintained differing views on the significance of the pre-disclosure reports, their respective analyses shared common ground: the price declines on the alleged corrective disclosure dates, they agreed, were attributable to “Goldman-specific” information. J.A. 3908, 3912, 3915. However, in order to determine what Goldman-specific information caused the stock price decline on the corrective disclosure dates, Dr. Gompers focused on 36 dates on which various articles, all published before the filing of the Abacus Complaint, reported broadly on Goldman and concerns of conflicts of interest. Dr. Gompers viewed the 36 pre-disclosure dates as “alternative corrective disclosure dates,” J.A. 3806, because the information contained in the articles “was similar to the information released on the alleged corrective disclosure dates in that it indicated to market participants that Goldman allegedly favored itself over its clients, or favored one client over another,” J.A. 1532. Building from there, Dr. Gompers explained that because Goldman’s stock did not decline in response to similar information revealed by the pre-disclosure articles, the price decline on the three disclosure dates must have been due to news of the enforcement action in and of itself. In that sense, Dr. Gompers opined that the pre-disclosure reports “disentangle[d] how much [of the price decline] was due to [the] conflict news.” J.A. 4602. Unlike the three corrective disclosure dates, which contained both “conflicts news” and “news of an enforcement action,” id., the pre-disclosure reports discussed only news implicating Goldman’s conflicts management. The pre-disclosure reports, for Dr. Gompers, are simply a better match. Through Dr. Finnerty, plaintiffs offered various rebuttals. For example, Dr. Finnerty argued that any potential price impact was “thwarted by Goldman’s repeated denials” as set forth in many of the articles. J.A. 2043. Dr. Finnerty also opined that the Abacus Complaint revealed “significant new information concerning the severity of Goldman’s misconduct in issuing the Abacus CDO,” J.A. 2044, which, for him, uncovered for the first time “the truth about Goldman’s fraudulent conduct regarding its conflicts of interest,” id., and the fact that Goldman had “failed to manage its conflicts of interest,” J.A. 4707. On the whole, Dr. Finnerty pegged as futile Dr. Gompers’ efforts to disentangle the price impact caused by the news of the enforcement action itself from the conduct underlying it. Dr. Finnerty explained that “[t]he enforcement actions or investigations are inextricably tied to the content [and]…the fact that [the SEC] embodied [the conduct] in an enforcement action document raises…in the minds of investors, the severity level.” J.A. 657. The district court ultimately credited Dr. Finnerty’s opinion. It noted that it had previously declined to credit Dr. Gompers’ view of the pre-disclosure reports, and that because “the updated direction from the Supreme Court and Second Circuit has no bearing on these factual findings,” it would “reiterate[], and restate[], its grounds only in brief.” In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 532. It found that (1) unlike the pre-disclosure reports, the Abacus Complaint was the first public account to detail and document those conflicts with hard evidence, including incriminatory emails and memoranda authored by Goldman employees; (2) “the underlying source of the disclosure — the SEC — lent extra credibility and gravitas unequaled in the prior reports; and (3) the disclosure was unencumbered by any of the denials or mitigating commentary that had rendered prior reports less jarring.” Id. Goldman begins its press by arguing that the district court erred in crediting Dr. Finnerty’s views of the pre-disclosure reports. It did not. The district court recognized correctly — or, at least, not clearly erroneously — a qualitative difference in the respective buckets of news. The Abacus Complaint contained details which substantiated its allegations of wrongdoing; the pre-disclosure reports, meanwhile, discussed the transactions, but only generally alleged that Goldman had acted unlawfully, or was otherwise guilty of wrongdoing. It was not clearly erroneous to recognize that, in pointing its finger at Goldman, the SEC had details to back it up. Nor did the district court err in finding that the SEC’s name lends a certain amount of credibility or gravitas to the allegations underlying the Abacus Complaint, and, therefore that, as a matter of common sense, denying wrongdoing in the face of an SEC enforcement action is likely to have less of a thwarting effect on potential stock price declines than denying more general claims made by media outlets. The district court recognized what, at minimum, is not clearly erroneous: the filing of an enforcement action is a different kind of event than the publishing of a news story. The two events ring of different tenors. By the same token, the district court did not misstep in finding unpersuasive Goldman’s efforts to disentangle and separately quantify the price decline attributable to, on the one hand, the conduct underlying the enforcement action, and, on the other hand, the news of the enforcement action itself. The SEC’s decision to charge Goldman was precisely because of the nature of the conduct. As Dr. Finnerty opined, the enforcement action “signals the greater severity than if an enforcement action hadn’t been filed, but an enforcement action is never going to get filed unless the misbehavior or alleged misbehavior occurred in the first place…[t]hat’s why you can’t separate them.” J.A. 658. It was not clear error to credit that opinion. Still, that gets us only so far. While the district court did not clearly err in rejecting Goldman’s invitation to view the pre-disclosure reports as alternative corrective disclosure dates, that focuses our analysis on the corrective disclosures as alleged by plaintiffs — but it does not resolve it. Likewise, even accepting as true (or not clearly erroneous) the district court’s view that the conduct (conflicts management) described in the Abacus Complaint is intertwined with the charge — in other words, that the price drop occurred because of both — that establishes, at most, that the corrective disclosures, like the alleged misrepresentations, concern the subject of conflicts management. The question remains whether, in light of the Supreme Court’s guidance in Goldman, it was clear error for the district court to rely on that subject-matter match to use the back-end price drop as a proxy for front-end inflation allegedly maintained by what the district court acknowledged were comparatively generic misstatements. Again, a back-end price drop is, at most, “backward-looking, indirect evidence,” In re Allstate Corp. Sec. Litig., 966 F.3d at 613, of the price impact “at the time of purchase,” id. at 611. “Data from later times may be relevant to this inquiry, but only insofar as they help the district court determine the information impounded into the price at the time of the initial transaction.” Id. at 612. In our view, the genericness and mismatch inquiries go to the value of the back-end price drop as indirect evidence of a front-end, inflation-maintaining price impact, an issue at which the parties direct most of their efforts. II. The district court clearly erred in assessing the generic nature of business principles statements, but not the conflicts disclosure. Goldman argues the district court failed to appreciate the generic nature of the challenged statements. It faults the district court for discrediting Dr. Laura Starks, who, Goldman says, correctly observed that the alleged misrepresentations “do not provide information that bears on a company’s future financial performance or value” and “are also too general to convey anything precise or meaningful” that can be used in investment decision-making. J.A. 2608. Goldman insists that in finding as a matter of fact that “[t]he alleged misstatements were not so generic as to diminish their power to maintain pre-existing price inflation,” In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 534, the district court glossed over and minimized the genericness analysis. The district court’s findings on this issue go to a baseline question: how generic are the alleged misrepresentations? Beginning there makes sense; it is a practical, threshold factual inquiry to the ensuing Goldman-driven analysis of whether there is a gap in specificity between a set of misstatements and corrective disclosures. The district court conducted that initial inquiry by separating the statements in two buckets, one consisting of the business principles statements — such as “integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business,” which it acknowledged “present as platitudes when read in isolation” — and the other containing the “more specific” conflicts disclosure.6 In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 534. With respect to the former, it found that “even the more generic statements, when read in conjunction with one another (and particularly in conjunction with statements specifically concerning conflicts), may reinforce misconceptions about Goldman’s business practices, and thereby serve to sustain an already-inflated stock price.” Id. As to the more specific conflicts disclosure, the court found that “the statements concerning Goldman’s conflicts…are quite a bit more specific in form and focus than, say assurances that ‘[i]ntegrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.’” Id. The district court’s answer to the preliminary inquiry: not so generic. Business Principles Statements With respect to the business principles statements, the district court’s genericness analysis is untenable. The district court found that the business principles category of statements — statements such as “integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business” — “present as platitudes when read in isolation.” Id. There is no need to second-guess that factual finding; nor was it clearly erroneous to find, as the district court did, that when read as a whole the business principles statements are somewhat more specific. See id. From there however, the district court overstated their specificity by finding that these “more generic statements, when read…particularly in conjunction with statements specifically concerning conflicts[], may reinforce misconceptions about Goldman’s business practices.” Id. That finding was clearly erroneous. The business principles and conflicts statements were separately disseminated to shareholders in separate reports at separate times,7 and plaintiffs offered no evidence, either through Dr. Finnerty or otherwise, to support a finding that, notwithstanding that space in medium and time, investors would still conjunctively consume those statements. True, a statement can be materially misleading when “the defendants’ representations, taken together and in context, would have mislead a reasonable investor.” Altimeo Asset Mgmt. v. Qihoo 360 Tech. Co., 19 F.4th 145, 151 (2d Cir. 2021) (quoting Rombach v. Chang, 355 F.3d 164, 172 n.7 (2d Cir. 2004)). But the relevant “context” is not a separately disseminated misstatement — at least where, as here, the statements do not obviously compliment or implicate the same topics — but the reality of the company’s affairs or condition at a time when a misstatement was made. So, for example, a company’s statement that its distribution market is “highly competitive,” might be actionable when considered within the context that the company did not actually operate in a competitive market and instead colluded with its competitors to fix prices. See In re Henry Schein, Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 18 Civ. 01428, 2019 WL 8638851, at *12 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2019). Or, a company’s statement that it has “demonstrated successful acquisition and integration capabilities” might be actionable when, at the time the statement was made, the company had already fired key integration staff and was dealing with a poor integration of a newly acquired company. City of Omaha Police & Fire Ret. Sys. v. Evoqua Water Techs. Corp., 450 F. Supp. 3d 379, 412 (S.D.N.Y. 2020). Case law does not suggest, however, that investors read one statement in conjunction with separately disseminated statements, at least where, as here, those statements do not obviously build off one and other. Plaintiffs offer no meaningful rebuttal. Instead, they claim that “the business-principle[s] statements, while more generic, are not challenged standing alone but as reinforcing the conflict statements.” Appellees Br. at 39. That bald assertion is unsupported by any citation to the record, nor, upon our independent of review of it, is there any suggestion that the business principles statements were consumed by investors as piggybacking off the conflicts disclosure. To the contrary, plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that they comprise, on their own, the “third category of false and misleading statements.” J.A. 95. In any event, by that logic, an exceedingly generic statement could always withstand, for example, motions to dismiss or for summary judgment by seeking shelter under a more specific statement, so long as the more specific statement implicates broad topics such as integrity or honesty. Securities law provides no such cover. “A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Dist. Lodge 26, Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO v. United Techs. Corp., 610 F.3d 44, 51 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal citation omitted). The record evidence here provides no support for reading the business principles statements in conjunction with the conflicts disclosure. Accordingly, doing so was clear error. Keeping in mind that a class certification genericness analysis pursuant to Goldman was, for the district court, and is, for us, new and uncharted territory, it is appropriate to pause to consider the implications of the error identified. In the normal course, that error would almost certainly require remand. Erroneously assessing a misrepresentation’s genericness would necessarily infect the ensuing mismatch inquiry — it would proceed from the wrong starting point. However, the balance of the district court’s analysis, including its mismatch inquiry, centers on the conflicts disclosure. Apart from acknowledging that the business principles statements “equate roughly, in terms of genericness, to the Supreme Court’s prototype,”8 In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 538, it did not meaningfully discuss them further. To be sure, the district court’s choice in focus is no fault of its own; throughout this litigation the conflicts disclosure has been center stage. Still, the district court acknowledged a gap in genericness even between the two sets of alleged misrepresentations — that is, that the conflicts disclosure is “quite a bit more specific in form and focus,” id. at 534, than the business principles statements. Plaintiffs likewise agree that their best shot at success is the conflicts disclosure; their counsel conceded at oral argument that, standing on its own, a claim based on the business principles statements would face a decidedly tough road to recovery. See Oral Arg. Audio at 1:07:16, Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc (No 22-484).9 In short, if the district court’s mismatch analysis, centered as it is on the conflicts disclosure, cannot withstand scrutiny — and, as explained below, it cannot — then plaintiffs’ claim based on the business principles statements must also fail. Accordingly, there is no need to remand for the district court’s reconsideration of the genericness of the business principles statements. Conflicts Disclosure As an initial matter, however, there is no merit to Goldman’s claim that, in labeling the conflicts disclosure as, essentially, less generic than the business principles statements, the district court similarly understated that statement’s generic nature. Not so. The district court assessed the conflicts disclosure, and, again, found that it was “quite a bit more specific in form and focus” than the business principles statements. In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 534. Goldman insists that is not enough; it contends that the district court failed to meaningfully consider our materiality case law, which, it claims, would have spotlighted the generic nature of the conflicts disclosure. It is true that Goldman gives courts a green light to assess a statement’s generic nature by referencing case law bearing on materiality. More specifically, Goldman permits courts to look to those cases for guidance as to whether, as a factual matter, courts have labeled comparable statements as generic. For example, our own materiality cases often feature claims based on a company’s risk disclosures, and our discussion in those cases often centers on whether the risk disclosures are sufficiently specific to evoke investors’ reliance.10 Those cases have examined, on one end, a detailed description of a company’s environmental compliance efforts, recounting the company’s pollution abatement equipment, water treatment efforts, and around-the-clock environmental monitoring teams, Jinkosolar Holdings, 761 F.3d at 247, and, on the other, more generic representations that a company has “established policies and procedures to comply with applicable requirements,” Singh, 918 F.3d at 61. Of course, the overarching question in those cases — materiality — differs from the price-impact analysis at issue here, yet both inquiries task courts with considering an alleged misrepresentation’s generic nature. Courts can look to those cases to answer whether a set of challenged statements are, as a matter of fact, generic. Goldman complains that the district court failed to do that here. Again: not so. The district court made clear that it considered cases bearing on materiality to the extent they presented issues overlapping with the price impact analysis. See In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 535 n.17. We take the district court at its word. Goldman bemoans that the district court relegated that point to a footnote, but that provides no occasion to impose specific stylistic mandates on district courts as they navigate this tricky area of law. III. The district court’s price impact analysis was based on an erroneous application of the inflation-maintenance theory. Although its attack on the district court’s threshold inquiry regarding the generic nature of the conflicts disclosure is without merit, we agree with Goldman that, having conducted that factual assessment, the district court then erred in applying Vivendi’s inflation-maintenance theory to weigh the parties’ evidence regarding the extent to which that disclosure might, in practice, maintain Goldman’s stock price. Review of the district court’s factual findings is limited to clear error, but whether a legal standard — here, the inflation-maintenance theory — has been incorrectly applied to those findings is an issue of law to be reviewed de novo. See In re Initial Public Offerings Sec. Litig., 471 F.3d 24, 32 (2d Cir. 2006) (“We will apply the abuse-of-discretion standard both to [the district court's] ultimate decision on class certification as well as her rulings as to Rule 23 requirements, bearing in mind that whether an incorrect legal standard has been used is an issue of law to be reviewed de novo.”). In this portion of its analysis, the district court began by crediting Goldman’s expert, Dr. Starks, who opined that the alleged misrepresentations were “unlikely, in a vacuum, to consciously influence investor behavior….” In re Goldman, 579 F. Supp. 3d at 534. Ultimately, however, the district court found Dr. Starks’ opinion to be of “limited use[].” Id. It explained that “the proper measure of inflation maintenance by a company that chooses to speak ‘is not what might have happened had a company remained silent, but what would have happened if it had spoken truthfully.’” Id. (quoting In re Vivendi, 838 F.3d at 258). Proceeding from that principle, the court credited “Dr. Finnerty’s analysis that truthful, contrary substitutes for the alleged misstatements would have impacted investors’ subsequent decision-making,” and found that “as Dr. Finnerty concluded, ‘[t]his is precisely what happened here when investors learned in April and June 2010 the details and severity of Goldman’s misconduct, and Goldman’s stock was devalued accordingly.’” Id. (quoting J.A. 2816). To the same tune, it faulted Goldman for failing to present evidence “purporting to demonstrate, under the test set forth in Vivendi, that if Goldman had replaced the alleged misstatements with the alleged truth about its conflicts, its stock price would have held fast.” Id. at 535. Goldman contends that the district court’s rendition of the inflation-maintenance theory is overly expansive. Correct. Specifically, our cases applying the theory establish its limits; the district court’s interpretation pushed the inflation-maintenance theory well beyond them. a. The inflation-maintenance theory under Vivendi, Waggoner, and Goldman Waggoner. Our recent application of the inflation-maintenance theory in Waggoner v. Barclays PLC highlights the tension at work with applying the inflation-maintenance theory to the facts of this case. There, in order to quell “concerns that high-frequency traders may have been front running” other traders on a specific Barclays trading platform, Barclays’ officers made numerous statements to assure investors the platform was “safe from” aggressive trading practices, and that it “was taking steps to protect” institutional investors on those platforms by monitoring and removing aggressive traders who violated the platforms’ special protections. 875 F.3d 79, 87 (2d Cir. 2017). In the end, upon the filing of a complaint by the New York Attorney General (the “NYAG Complaint”) alleging securities fraud under state law, investors learned that those representations were allegedly false because, according to the State, no special protections existed, and, in fact, Barclays favored rather than removed aggressive traders. Id. at 88. Waggoner is particularly illuminating given the similarity between the corrective disclosure there and here; both took the form of an enforcement action. Unlike here, however, Waggoner presented a tight fit between corrective disclosure and misrepresentation: the NYAG Complaint targeted the same trading platform discussed by Barclays in their misleading statements, and took aim at the same or similar statements underlying the claims subsequently pressed by plaintiffs in Waggoner, alleging that those statements were false or misleading. Compare id. at 87-88, with Summons and Complaint at 6, 8-11, People ex rel. Schneiderman v. Barclays Capital, Inc. et al., No. 451391/2014 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 25, 2014), Dkt. No. 1, 2014 WL 2880709. There was no question in Waggoner that the corrective disclosure directly implicated not just the same topic, but the alleged misstatements themselves — a notable distinction from the misrepresentation-corrective disclosure relationship here. Waggoner is therefore an easy inflation-maintenance case. The company’s affirmative false statements were expressly identified as such by the corrective disclosure. By expressly and specifically negating the alleged false statement, the truthful substitute for the lie was identified by the corrective disclosure itself. Vivendi. The link between misstatement and disclosure was equally strong in Vivendi. There, the company’s repeated statements regarding its comfortable liquidity situation were later contradicted by a body of information — including several downgrades to its debt rating, public reports regarding the company’s lack of transparency about its large debt obligations, and, ultimately, the announcement that the company faced massive refinancing needs that would require a fire sale of assets — all of which revealed that its cash flow was anything but strong. See In re Vivendi, 838 F.3d at 235-37. As in Waggoner, among the various disclosures identified by the plaintiffs in Vivendi were back-end reports or investigations expressly implicating the alleged misstatements. See Amended Complaint at
