When the sun turned back to Asia again, on October 30, in Hong Kong, where everyone was focused, the most intense financial offensive and defensive battle since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis officially began.
Central, Hong Kong.
At the Hong Kong headquarters of Deutsche Bank in the International Financial Center Building, Hans Edel did not rest all night last night, and naturally did not return to his luxurious suite in the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Since the close of trading yesterday, Hans Edel has been on the phone non-stop for more than ten hours, contacting the headquarters of Deutsche Bank for support; contacting Hong Kong's short-term capital to discuss countermeasures; and even contacting some people in the United States. Make connections, inquire about information, and seek possible solutions.
With a capital of 5.3 billion U.S. dollars, which weighed 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in the Hong Kong financial market, Hans Edel can imagine that if he cannot survive the next two days, his personal career will also come to an end.
Even if this was not an operational error on his part, but a black swan event that no one expected.
However, Hans Edel knew very well that this was never a world of right and wrong, it was a world of success and failure.
If you are a loser, no matter what the reason, you are a loser.
Hans Edel once wanted to give up directly, because he knew exactly what he was facing.
Simon Westeros and George Soros are just standing on the stage. They are facing the entire Wall Street and the Hong Kong authorities who no longer intend to follow the rules of the game in order to protect their financial markets and directly intervene.
None of the three parties can be resisted by ordinary capital.
Backed by Deutsche Bank, Hans Edel is not a general capital, but he is also unable to resist. Because the German headquarters had almost given up after a long conference call, so he did not receive any additional support. The instructions from the headquarters were only to let him reduce losses as much as possible.
However, even if he can minimize his losses, he is still a loser.
In 1997, the Hong Kong stock market still opened at 10 a.m.
At 9:30, pre-market trading begins.
Hans Edel, who was directly guarding the trading team's office with bloodshot eyes, did not expect any miracles to happen, and directly asked the traders to start seeking to close various short contracts in their hands.
Feedback also came quickly. The system had a backlog of selling orders and could not complete the transaction at all.
This is also expected.
Wall Street deliberately set up such a trap, how could they easily escape
Half an hour later, at 10 o'clock, the Hong Kong stock market officially opened. In an instant, it jumped from 10537 points yesterday to 10624 points. A large projected screen was hung on the wall of the trader's office. Hans Edel just stared coldly. Watching the fluctuations of the index and curve, ignoring the eyes of some traders subconsciously looking over to wait for orders.
The minimum margin ratio in the Hong Kong futures market is 10%, which is 10 times leverage.
This means that in the next two days, for the short capital in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index must be kept within 11,000 points as much as possible, so as to avoid the direct liquidation of many short positions that are fully leveraged and unable to replenish their margins.
In the current situation, no one is stupid enough to fill up more margin.
No matter how much you add, you will probably lose as much.
Hans Edel knows very well that yesterday's closing price of over 10,500 points has actually caused a small number of short-selling capitals that had bet on short targets within 9,500 points and carried out full leverage operations to directly liquidate their positions, including his own, and some contracts have also been liquidated. The position has been forcibly closed.
The current question is, how much will be left after the official settlement tomorrow
As for the rollover operation that was directly extended before futures expired in the past, it is obviously not possible this time. Or because of the zero-sum game, when you have already won a big victory, the bulls will not accompany you.
Let’s talk about myself.
In addition to short futures in various aspects, Hans Edel also holds Hong Kong stocks worth approximately US$500 million.
These were originally chips used for short selling, so that they could make more money when the market went down.
Now, it has become a tool to make yourself lose as little as possible.
Hans Edel actually thought that holding these stocks in his hands and waiting for appreciation would probably be equivalent to making up for losses.
The thought was just a passing thought after all.
The US$500 million chip was meant to be bought at the high range of Hong Kong stocks in recent months, and its positioning was not an investment at all. Moreover, the current situation is also very obvious. The Hong Kong authorities and Wall Street capital cannot push up the Hang Seng Index indefinitely. Hans Edel judged that after the offensive and defensive battle at the end of the month, the Hang Seng Index guarded by Hong Kong will continue to rise. The range is probably around 10,000 points.
Compared with the previous purchase price, the Hang Seng Index is still at a loss of 10,000 points.
Therefore, in the past two days, as the Hong Kong authorities and Wall Street capital wanted to push up the Hang Seng Index as much as possible, it was the best time for him to sell these stocks. Of course, unless there is another super black swan in the Hang Seng Index and it returns to 16,000 points in two days, this is of course a dream. Therefore, these stocks will definitely still suffer losses after settlement.
The curve trend of the Hang Seng Index is displayed on the big screen in the office.
After a brief jump at the opening, short capital began to exert force, and the Hang Seng Index quickly fell back, and then rose again.
Up, up, down.
Down, down, up.
In this way, until 12 noon, during the two-hour morning trading session, the Hang Seng Index continued to fluctuate around yesterday's 10,500 points.
This was also expected by Hans Edel.
Because the key is still the afternoon.
Unlike tomorrow's settlement day, the Hang Seng Index futures contract will be settled based on the average throughout the day, today, the settlement points are still real-time. Therefore, as long as the bulls pull the Hang Seng Index up to 11,000 points at the last minute today, a large number of shorts will be liquidated again and be forced to liquidate afterwards.
During the lunch break, Hans Edel, who had always been very restrained, accidentally overeaten himself because he was thinking about things. He laughed at himself and spent the rest of the time on the phone and discussing countermeasures with his team.
Throughout the morning, the trading team only closed a small part of its positions and recovered less than 200 million US dollars.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the stock market opened again.
In the first hour, the situation was still tepid near 10,500 points. After two o'clock, the Hang Seng Index began to rise rapidly again.
The big screen projection in the trading office was also changed from the macro Hang Seng Index curve to the specific stock prices of Hang Seng Index constituent stocks under the instruction of Hans Edel.
At 2:15, Hans Eder finally issued the first sell order of the day, selling a Hang Seng Index component stock worth US$20 million at once. The trader who received the order completed the operation. I glanced at another computer screen in front of me and found that the Hang Seng Index had indeed experienced a downward fluctuation.
Subsequently, Edel, who had all the information in his mind, continued to instruct traders to sell stocks at a frequency of about once every 10 minutes.
Occasionally a few more calls would be made.
However, the Hang Seng Index continued to rise amid shocks.
After two torturous hours, coupled with the 8 to 10 minutes of floating trading time that the Hong Kong stock market has more than other markets, the Hang Seng Index finally closed at 10,711 points, a single-day increase of 2.5%.
More statistics are coming soon.
On the entire trading day of October 30, the single-day trading volume of the Hong Kong stock market more than doubled compared to yesterday, reaching 79.6 billion Hong Kong dollars. Compared with the average transaction size of about 10 billion Hong Kong dollars on normal trading days in the past, it was even more than enough. It has increased by 7 times, which shows the fierceness of the long-short game on this day.
In the traders' office at Deutsche Bank's Hong Kong headquarters, when most of the traders were somewhat thankful that they had held on to the 9,800-point short position without being liquidated, Hans Edel, who had been standing in the corner for almost a day, slowly slid down the wall and sat down. On to the ground.
Of the US$500 million in chips, only US$170 million is left.
This was the ultimate balance he could make after repeatedly saving.
After a little calculation of the general situation of other short sellers he knew, Hans Edel understood that the chips in the hands of those people would only be less.
As for Wall Street and the Hong Kong government
Hans Edel can probably guess that the main force of the bulls today must be Hong Kong, and Wall Street may not even do much!
In this case, there is no need to take any chances tomorrow.
Liquidation is almost inevitable.
After thinking about this, Hans Edel slowly stood up, returned to his office, picked up the phone and called the German headquarters, reported his judgment in a dry voice, and then casually carried his expensive Armani suit, a little casually. Leave the Financial Center Building and return to the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Plan to have a good sleep.
Perhaps, it will not be easy to stay in such a good hotel for a long time in the future.
As for tomorrow, let him be.
Having just walked all the way back to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which was not far away, Hans Edel looked up with emotion, wanting to take a look at this high-end hotel in a prime location in Hong Kong.
Then, a black dot suddenly fell from the top of the building.
Getting closer and bigger.
Finally, it fell with a bang more than ten meters away from Hans Edel. Edel felt a bit like a broken watermelon falling to the ground.
Similar in every way.
This is a man in a gray suit.
Hans Edel tilted his head slightly and looked around for a moment when a woman who happened to be passing by screamed. He was just a little curious in his mind, how did this guy get to the rooftop
As for why the other party jumped, Edel didn't think much about it.
What else.
If you speculate in futures, you will lose everything.
But why jump? Living, even if you are a loser, is actually quite good.
Once again, many people had a sleepless night.
The cold sunshine patrolled the Asian sky again the next day, and found that the annoying cloud city covered the city of Hong Kong, as if there was some secret that it didn't want outsiders to know.
Somewhat annoying.
Fortunately, clouds are weak in front of the sun, and there are many other areas that can shine.
There really isn't any suspense.
October 31, the last day of October, is also the final settlement day for various futures positions in the Hong Kong financial market.
Unlike previous dates, where transactions were based on the real-time data of the Hang Seng Index, on the settlement day, the final settlement points of the Hang Seng Index futures will be settled based on an average value during the entire day's trading period. In other words, even if the Hang Seng Index futures trades at the last minute It skyrocketed to 16,000 points. If the average throughout the day was only 10,000 points, settlement would still be based on 10,000 points.
Because of this rule, when some short sellers who still couldn't see the situation clearly thought that today's game would be easier, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the Hong Kong stock market officially opened, and the Hang Seng Index jumped again from 10711 points at yesterday's closing, directly to 11032 point, if it were not for the settlement date, more short positions in the Hang Seng Index would have been liquidated.
Short capital immediately launched a counterattack.
However, this time, the selling pressure of the short sellers seemed to have encountered an iron wall. Not only did it fail to push the Hang Seng Index into within 11,000 points again, the index curve continued to rise steadily, just like a tank breaking into a cold weapon battlefield, completely ignoring its surroundings. The bows and arrows and spears or the cavalry charge were just crushed forward easily, crushing all the way from 11,000 points to 11,500 points.
Until the final close in the afternoon, the Hang Seng Index finally settled at a high of 11,507 points, with a single-day increase of 7.4%.
The settlement point of the Hang Seng Index futures in October was finally fixed at 11,265 points. None of the short sellers in the 9,000 point range of the Hang Seng Index futures survived. Not only that, because the account amounts of some of the short sellers were simply not enough to cover the losses, the Hong Kong Futures Exchange was not allowed to If you don’t advance a part temporarily, you will have to recover it from the relevant members afterwards.
In addition to Hang Seng Index futures, short-selling operations directly targeting various stocks in the Hong Kong stock market, and even some other short-selling patterns, all ended in huge losses.
This global financial defense battle for Hong Kong ended with a resounding victory for the Hong Kong authorities and Wall Street bulls.
No one knows how much short-seller capital has been lost overall. The media can only make some vague statistics based on various public data afterwards. The generally recognized figure is about US$30 billion.
In this era, the world's top companies have annual profits of only around US$5 billion. A typical example is Daenerys Entertainment Group.
In the minds of ordinary people, most financial giants may have businesses worth tens or hundreds of billions. In fact, their annual profits are basically around US$1 billion, such as Goldman Sachs.
US$30 billion, based on the profit level of this era, is equivalent to Goldman Sachs's profit in 30 years.
Even if all the Wall Street financial giants who pulled the strings this time share, US$30 billion is definitely a rich piece of fat. And the many capitals that fell into the trap, such as Deutsche Bank, which later disclosed serious losses, will not only lose money in the early stage. Thailand, Malaysia and other countries and regions have spit out all their short-selling profits, and have invested more than one billion US dollars again.
Hans Edel, vice president of derivatives trading at Deutsche Bank, chose to resign voluntarily after the incident.
After an exciting week, it’s the weekend.
It's November 1st, Halloween.
The Halloween season in North America started yesterday. "The Conjuring 3", another blockbuster film in the Daenerys Entertainment Group's The Conjuring movie universe, opened at the same time in North America and major markets around the world. However, it is basically competing with itself, and there is still room for comparison. Phenomenal ultra-low-cost pseudo-documentary film "The Ghost Story".
The Halloween atmosphere in Hong Kong is not very strong.
Victoria Peak.
Inside the mansion on Shi Xun Road.
After Wednesday's press conference, Chen Qing did not leave. She stayed in Hong Kong to watch the excitement and also take stock of the gains.
Because she got inside information from her boss, Chen Qing and Lin Su secretly established a long position worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which can be regarded as two small crocodiles. After settlement yesterday, the profit exceeded 50 million U.S. dollars, enough to buy a house in Hong Kong. A top-notch mansion.
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Of course, since his boss is not interested in Hong Kong, Chen Qing is not interested either, and of course he will not spend the money.
Morning time.
Hong Kong, which had rained yesterday, is still gloomy today, with occasional wisps of rain falling.
Chen Qing was in a good mood. She was entertaining guests, guests from South Korea.