Chapter 367 The rain is about to come

After all, Luo Zai is a person who understands his eyebrows. Even if he does such a trivial matter as stealing a chicken, he does not forget to leave the name of the opponent's association at the end. The koan came down to Heyinghe.

  After work was over, these people quickly divided up the remuneration they had received, and then carried the luggage bags they had prepared long ago, and left the country through different checkpoints. As for when they would return, it was estimated that they would have to wait until the limelight had completely passed.

  …

  January 5, the last day of Soros' visit to South Korea, the Hang Seng Index began its second day of trading in 1998. At this time, Soros has not made any remarks on the Korean market, but the travel of the big man has attracted widespread attention from the market, which has also affected the Hang Seng Index to a certain extent.

   Opened at 10,673 points, and then several heavyweight stocks performed well, which to a certain extent triggered the rise of the broader market index. It's just that this rise didn't last long. After the index rose slightly by 25 points, the Hang Seng Index began to fall slowly. Analysts thought it was a normal callback phenomenon and didn't pay much attention to it.

  Just after noon, the speed of this so-called "callback" suddenly increased a lot, which surprised many investors and analysts, and this kind of unexplained decline can most cause panic in the market. Although the Hong Kong stock market is famous for its roller coaster rides, and investors lack confidence, after experiencing several large-scale declines last year, and even falling by more than 1,000 points in one day, Hong Kong stock investors undoubtedly became more nervous.

   Soon, a piece of news about Soros's unfavorable announcement on the Korean stock market and even the Asian stock market spread like wildfire, which gave a sufficient reason for the current stock market decline. Some investors who believed in this statement began to try to sell, and then more investors also began to sell. In this case, the decline of Hong Kong stocks is inevitable. But after all, this statement is most likely aimed at the Seoul market in South Korea. Even if Soros is strongly bearish, because Hong Kong and South Korea are not closely related economically, today's decline is limited.

  Under such bearish expectations, Hong Kong stocks fell 370 points all day, closing at 10303 points, a drop of 3.53%. The two trading days before 1998 continued to fall, and Hong Kong stock investors couldn't help feeling a bit of gloom in their hearts. Their intuition told them that this year might not be a good one.

  The Asian currency crisis that began to rise again in mid-October started from Hong Kong. After half a month of fighting, it soon spread to South Korea in the north. South Korea, which is known as the eleventh largest economy in the world, has no resistance in the face of the currency crisis, and easily gave up resistance (the fact is that it cannot resist at all). After South Korea suffered heavy losses, the currency crisis has spread back to Southeast Asia, and this time it is no longer as simple as a currency crisis. Many countries have already fallen into financial crisis or even economic crisis.

  During this process, business closures, employee unemployment, bank closures, bank runs, property market price cuts, etc., all appeared in various countries or regions one by one. These phenomena also appeared in Hong Kong. In mid-November, the richest man in Hong Kong, Lee Ka-shing, announced that he would sell his Changhe property at a 30% discount, which caused an uproar for a while. Under the influence of this price, other real estate companies in Hong Kong have also announced that they will sell their properties at reduced prices, and the entire Hong Kong property market has also entered a slump.

  Under such circumstances, Liao Chengde was naturally extremely busy, spending all day confiscating buildings and houses. Due to the decline in housing market prices, many people have stopped paying for the flat, and there is even a phenomenon of giving away the flat for free, that is, as long as the other party is willing to continue to pay, the owner will give the unit to the person who is willing to take over without paying a penny.

For example, for a 100-square-meter house, the original market price is 3 million Hong Kong dollars. After the owner wins it with a down payment of 600,000 Hong Kong dollars, the property will be mortgaged for 30 years, which is about 80,000 Hong Kong dollars per year, and the total payment is 2.4 million (interest omitted). . But now the property price has suddenly dropped to the point where the unit is only worth 2 million Hong Kong dollars, so if the owner wants to continue to pay for the property, it is better to buy a new house, so in this case, a large number of so-called zero-down-payment housing resources appear, and in To some extent accelerated the decline in housing prices.

  Seeing Lao Liao working so hard, Liao Xiaohua naturally accompanied him all the way without hesitation. The father and son traveled all over Hong Kong Island, the New Territories and Kowloon during this period, buying one after another. With billions of Hong Kong dollars as their backing, they seldom haggle, and often decide on the spot on the spot. This also led to more and more properties under Zhong Shi's name, and even a building was allocated under his name.

  Zhong Shi didn't know anything about it, he had already handed everything over to the Liaos and his sons, and he was at ease. After the market closed that day, there were thousands more contracts of HSI futures in his account. After the transaction was over, he and Ma Jiarui were drinking tea and chatting in the coffee room.

   "Today's market is rather strange. Could it be that investors are really in a hurry?" Ma Jiarui threw a sugar cube into the cup and stirred it vigorously, then asked back with a frown.

Since their main task during this period was to short the Hong Kong stock futures index, along with selling Indonesian rupiah, Ma Jiarui focused his work on the Hong Kong stock market. After studying the performance of the Hong Kong stock market during this period, he noticed something was wrong. Come.

Zhong Shi took a sip from his teacup and said casually: "What's wrong? I think this is a normal reaction. The Hang Seng Index has always been so abnormal, just like riding a Ferris wheel or a roller coaster. became the norm."

Although Zhong Shi said so, Ma Jiarui still had doubts in his heart, touched his chin and thought for a long time, sat opposite Zhong Shi, and said solemnly: "Zhong Sheng, I have this intuition, it seems that this fall is premeditated, You must know that the last time something similar happened, Stanley was stabbed in the back."

  In mid-October, Stanley, which had been singing many Hong Kong stocks in a high-profile manner, suddenly changed its shape and became the vanguard of shorting Hong Kong stocks. On the second day after their chief analyst sang about Hong Kong stocks, the Hang Seng Index plummeted, which also caused Huaxia Telecom, which chose to go public on that day, to break.

The so-called break means that when the initial public offering (IPO) is issued, the underwriting investment bank formulates an issue price that can be accepted by most investors in the market after consulting with the road show. This price directly determines how much the listed company can raise. Funding is therefore crucial.

Huaxia Telecom was listed in Hong Kong, and the underwriter was Huajin, which is a mainland investment bank that has a blood relationship with Stanley. Huaxia Telecom, which went public on the first day, broke through the issue price and failed to raise enough funds as expected. It is said that this matter has aroused strong dissatisfaction with Wang Qifan, Huajin's major shareholder in mainland China and the chairman of Huaxia Commercial Bank.

   At that time, the market generally believed that this was a head-to-head confrontation between Stanley Hong Kong and Joaquin, but thinking about it now, Ma Jiarui felt a little different. Coupled with the fact that foreign investment banks have frequently sung more about Hong Kong stocks recently, this made his doubts even more intense.

   Zhong Shi has long been aware of the urgency of foreign investment banks, but he has never pointed it out. In fact, such things as strategies are originally a matter of your choice. If you want to always rely on the analysis of investment banks, it is basically no different from gambling.

  The key reason why foreign investment banks have “strong” research capabilities is that they have funds that can leverage the broader market, which is unmatched by investment banks in Hong Kong or mainland China. And in some research aspects, their logic and research methods are indeed convincing, and this has produced the Matthew effect, making the strong always strong.

For example, if Stanley Company rated a certain stock as "strongly recommended to buy", the funds that use their research report will get the relevant information in advance before the report comes out, and then announce it after they sneak in. These funds will naturally Just make a lot of money, and in the long run, their research reports will become the vane of the direction of a stock market.

   Over time, even their macro strategy reports have become the main source of reference for fund operations. Under such circumstances, their influence is naturally increasing day by day.

   But if they blatantly contradict the market, wouldn’t these fund managers who are smarter than ghosts not notice it? The problem lies precisely in this gambling nature. In fact, in many cases, operating in the capital market is almost the same as gambling, especially in certain gray corners. In order to maintain their reputation, these investment banks may release several to dozens of reports with very different conclusions, for example, seven reports are positive, two are negative, and the last one remains unchanged. In this case, there are not many people who can tell what the other party's intentions are.

  After the market trend comes out, these foreign investment banks will hype them up again, and we are right again, and then we will launch those researchers who were once bearish and become the dazzling stars of the market. It goes on and on again, and the ultimate unlucky ones are naturally those fund managers who use their research reports.

Of course, this is only a small part of the game between funds and investment banks. In fact, it is impossible for each fund to only use the research reports of one investment bank. Usually, they will summarize the research reports of three to five investment banks and choose the most likely one. kind. Moreover, powerful funds usually set up their own internal research departments, and combine research reports from investment banks and securities firms with their own research to strive for profitability in the market.

  These are things that practitioners know well. What makes Ma Jiarui puzzled is that not only Stanley Company is singing more, but Goodman Company is also singing more. With such a consistent pace, either they are planning a conspiracy, or they really think that the Hong Kong stock market has a bright future.

   "Stabbed?" Zhong Shi chuckled, "Your analogy is very appropriate, but we can use other people's investment reports. For example, Macquarie, Merrill Lynch, or the local Peregrine."

  As soon as Peregrine was mentioned, Zhong Shi suddenly thought of one thing, that is, this Asia's No. 1 investment bank is now likely to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Thinking of this possibility, he trembled all over. He didn't care to continue drinking tea, so he stood up and walked to the office.

"Hi, is this Song Ling?" After dialing the other party's phone, Zhong Shi said straight to the point without exchanging pleasantries, "I have a hunch that international speculators will soon launch another attack on Hong Kong. If you If I have time, I hope to meet and talk as soon as possible.”

"What?" Song Ling on the other end of the phone frowned, unable to believe what he heard, "Do you have any solid evidence? You should know that although the market is not good now, it is not bad at all." .If there is no real bad news, it will be difficult for them to attract investors to follow suit."

  Since November, many politicians in Hong Kong, including the chief executive, have expressed their support for Hong Kong's pegged exchange rate system, and even Yanjing has also expressed support, which has greatly increased the confidence of the Hong Kong government. Moreover, the Hong Kong government also announced its foreign exchange reserves in a timely manner. After experiencing the attacks of international speculators in October, the Hong Kong government's foreign exchange reserves increased instead of falling, with billions of dollars more. Dare to offend Hong Kong, don't they know how to write dead?

  Song Ling didn't take it seriously, but since the other party said so, he was too embarrassed to refuse, so after a little thought, he agreed on a place where he was going to have a good talk with Zhong Shi.

   Thanks to book friend Invincible Flying Dragon King for rewarding this book!

  

  

  (end of this chapter)