Chapter 104 Treasury Bond Futures Incident

  The surname is Guan, and he works for Wanguo Securities, which makes Zhong Shi easily think of the extremely sensational "327 National Bond Futures Incident" in later generations.

"327" is the code of the three-year treasury bond futures (F92306) issued in 1992 and delivered in June 1995 launched by the exchange. . The reason why the exchange sets such a high leverage is because the price fluctuation of the underlying treasury bond is not very big.

  At that time, the face price of this national bond was 100 yuan, and the coupon was 9.5%, that is, the holder would receive a total of 128.50 yuan in principal and interest after maturity. Originally, the market price of such a national bond would depend on the level of the three-year deposit interest rate, but in 1993, in order to resist inflation, the Ministry of Finance issued an announcement announcing that this type of national bond would enjoy the same value preservation subsidy as the interest rate of residents’ savings .

  Preservation subsidy is to add an unfixed interest rate to the level of the time deposit interest rate based on the current inflation rate, so as to achieve the purpose of not shrinking wealth. This is equivalent to adding a floating interest rate to a fixed interest rate. No one knows how to adjust this interest rate and what level it will be adjusted to.

  When the Ministry of Finance issued the announcement, it did not specify whether the national debt would increase simultaneously with the increase in the savings rate, which left unlimited imaginations for the market, which would directly affect the maturity value of the national debt.

At that time, the short and long sides of the market had different views on this. The short side believed that with the decline of inflation, the value-preserving discount rate of this national bond would also decline, so the price of this national bond in the market would also decline; At the same time, they believe that paying a high discount interest rate on a certain national bond is not in line with the country's fiscal policy, and in 1995 the issuance of new national bonds also increased by 50% compared with the previous year. It is even more impossible to provide high interest subsidy for the previously issued national debt. The bulls are holding the opposite view, so the two sides have formed a confrontation in the futures market of this Treasury bond.

Among the confronting parties, the short sellers were small and medium-sized retail investors represented by Huaxia First Securities Company Wanguo Securities at that time, and the arrow figure was Guan Husheng, known as the godfather of securities; while the bulls were headed by the Huaxia Economic Development Corporation under the Ministry of Finance. Some big households in wealthy areas were united, and the chairman of Huajingkai was a deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance at that time.

  The two sides fought repeatedly on the 327 treasury bond futures varieties, and finally reached the peak on February 23, 1995.

On this day, the long-rumored discount rate on the 327 national debt was confirmed and set at 12.98%. blow.

At the opening of the day, the other main force of the shorts turned back to go long. Under the condition of short positions being closed and longs opened, the price of 327 treasury bonds rose in a straight line. The largest short, Wanguo Securities, sold 1.2 million short orders at the position of 148.50 yuan. Wanted to seal the price at this position, but was easily penetrated by the bulls. The price of the treasury bond once rose to 151.98 yuan in the intraday session. The desperate short sellers put all their eggs in one basket in the eight minutes before the market closed, throwing out more than 10 million short orders at the price of 148.00 yuan. The price dropped from 151.30 to 147.50 yuan.

For a contract of 10 million lots, the face value exceeds 200 billion yuan, and the margin needs 3 billion yuan. Whether the short-seller Wanguo Securities has put out so much cash is beyond question, because in the process of falling futures prices, , as the biggest short sellers, they have made a profit of more than 4 billion according to the closing price, which is enough to pay the corresponding margin. But this is what ultimately left the handle for the bulls to come back.

   The longs who traded on this day suffered heavy losses, and basically ended up with a liquidation on the second day. But after all, Huajingkai is an enterprise under the Ministry of Finance, and the government will not allow them to go bankrupt. Therefore, at night, the exchange was "ordered" to announce that the transaction eight minutes before the close of the day was invalid, and the redemption price of 327 products was determined by the membership agreement. , that is, the futures companies with trading seats mutually agree on the price, and the final price is set at 151.30 yuan. This decision made Wanguo Securities' shocking comeback come to naught. In the end, Wanguo Securities lost 5.6 billion yuan and was forced to declare bankruptcy. The bull side made a profit of more than 7 billion yuan.

This incident shocked the entire securities industry in China, and even Zhuge Guan, the executive vice premier who presided over the work of the State Council at the time, was also alarmed. The final result also affected the price level of treasury bond futures in other years. The futures market was forced to suspend and did not open again until Zhongshi was reborn.

  In the media world, the Financial Times defined this day as the darkest day in Huaxia’s securities market, and the domestic media compared this incident with the collapse of Barings Bank, calling it Huaxia’s Barings Bank incident.

There are many parts of the whole matter that are the most controversial. First of all, it is about the preservation and discount. Kai is the largest holder of long positions in the bond futures in the market, which clearly involves insider trading, which has not been confirmed or investigated.

  Secondly, the treasury bond futures trading measures at that time clearly stipulated that short selling was allowed, and there was no limit for short selling. Therefore, it is extremely unreasonable to characterize the last crazy short selling of short sellers as invalid.

Furthermore, the tens of millions of empty orders in the last eight minutes are not necessarily all owned by Wanguo Securities, so the act of charging Wanguo Securities with the charge of "insufficient margin" and canceling all empty orders cannot be established, because as long as there is one of them The margin is sufficient for empty orders, which cannot be canceled. On the other hand, Hua Jingkai, a long position, holds more than 7.5 million long orders, and the margin needs to exceed 2.5 billion yuan. No one is asking whether the margin is sufficient. You must know that these long orders held by the bulls were held before the last eight minutes. Therefore, if the margin is insufficient, the bulls should be held accountable first.

  First set the rules of the game, and then enter the arena as a referee and wantonly break the rules. This is the current situation of the Huaxia stock market at that time, and this situation will continue. Even after Zhongshi's rebirth, there is not much change.

   This is also one of the reasons why Zhongshi does not attract money in the domestic market.

Guan Husheng, the leader of the short sellers, had an extremely tragic end. Three months after the incident, he was imprisoned. He was supposed to be sentenced to death. He was finally sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The most ironic thing is that the charge of manipulating the futures market was eventually dismissed by the court, which makes the exchange's decision override the law to some extent.

Zhong Shi rubbed the teacup in his hand silently, thinking about this "old past", he felt infinite emotion in his heart. On the one hand, it was the country he loved deeply, on the other hand, it was not healthy and would be destroyed wantonly. This system made him very embarrassed, and he felt helpless that he had nowhere to serve the country.

   "What are you thinking about?" Zhong Xiaohui couldn't help asking curiously seeing that Zhong Shi had been silent for a long time, her clear eyes were full of doubts.

   "I'm thinking, maybe I need to find a bodyguard for you. What do you think?" Zhong Shi recovered from his contemplation, and said to Zhong Xiaohui jokingly.

  Zhong Xiaohui stopped talking, and lowered her head to drink tea in a muffled voice.

  Zhong Shi has long had the idea of ​​providing bodyguards for each family member. Under his instruction, Land Rover opened a security company and recruited a group of retired soldiers. Although it has just started, it is more than enough to deal with daily "harassment".

  Once the net worth reaches a certain level, it will attract the covetousness of those who care about it, just like Liao Chengde, even though he keeps a low profile on weekdays and values ​​peace in his life, he is still targeted by criminals. If it was a purely business matter, then money would be the solution, but desperadoes like last time needed the protection of bodyguards all the time.

   Fortunately, Zhong Xiaohui still has more than a year to study in the mainland, and then she can go to Hong Kong with her family, which will reduce a lot of pressure on security.

Zhong Xiaohui knew in her heart that what Zhong Shi said was basically a decision. Guan Wei is still a bit graceful today, but there is no guarantee that someone else will pursue her with indiscriminate means. If so, it may be a bit dangerous .

When the siblings were relatively speechless, an extremely exaggerated voice suddenly came from behind their desk: "Have you read the recent foreign media, I heard that a man named Soros earned 100 million pounds. "

   "What? 100 million pounds, how much is that RMB!"

   "It's true. Later, Soros himself came out and said that he used leverage and shorted the pound. In short, he didn't know how to make 100 million. I can't make that much money in my life!"

   "You can't make money now, but it doesn't mean you won't make money in the future. After you Wanguo becomes the world's top brokerage, you can also wrestle with these people!"

   Then the two laughed at the same time.

   "What pound, what are they talking about?" Zhong Xiaohui asked intentionally to break the silence. She wasn't very interested in finance at first, but she knew that her younger brother had some talent in finance, maybe he might know some of it.

   It’s just that she never imagined that her younger brother was also a big winner in the pound crisis, and could even be called the instigator to some extent.

   "It's nothing, it's just that the pound depreciated inexplicably. In this process, you only need to borrow pounds and sell them, and then buy low-priced pounds to pay back when the pound depreciates, and make profits from it." Zhong Shi replied casually. In his heart, he lamented the great inertia of history, and the news of Soros shorting the British pound finally leaked out. (Everyone's support is the author's motivation, and the author's hard work is the greatest thanks to everyone)

  (end of this chapter)