Debuted right after graduating from high school

Leaving aside Zhang Liangying, who was thinking about going out shopping mainly to buy temporary tattoos to try out.

This girl knew that Fan Wumian was surrounded by many beautiful girls, and that she herself did not have any particular advantage in terms of appearance or figure. Therefore, she could only try to do her best to please him in certain ways in order to prevent being suddenly dumped one day because she lost interest.

Some of the moves and techniques were things Fan Wumian had never encountered before, and he thought they were only used in Japanese adult films. During their time together, he learned a lot of strange and new knowledge.

From some perspectives, this is clearly a kind of cleverness. Studies have shown that the more variety in a certain aspect, the more it helps to bring people closer together.

Around 9 a.m.

The burps even smelled like sweet potatoes. Fan Wumian went to the study and continued to deal with a huge pile of office emails.

Today, the secretary's office collected and compiled the paper documents sent over, which weighed about three or four pounds in total. Most of them were contracts and reports. After he reviewed them, signed and stamped them, they still need to be sent back to the company for organization and filing.

One of the reports, an internal report from Nomura Securities in Japan, successfully piqued Fan Wumian's interest.

A white financial analyst at Nomura Securities working on Wall Street predicted that the current financial market recovery would not last long because the US housing market was still deteriorating and collapsing, and the outstanding balance of US subprime mortgages was as high as $1.5 trillion, which indirectly caused a wider impact.

The bailout funds provided by the US government can only guarantee that a few large Wall Street companies will not go bankrupt. At least $8000 billion to $9000 billion is needed to completely resolve the subprime mortgage crisis.

The report also points out that the United States does have the ability to come up with this money, but due to various factors, it is unlikely to come up with a large sum of money to turn the tide in a short period of time. Instead, it is expected to take advantage of the subprime crisis to complete the harvest of emerging markets and allies in one fell swoop, after which this round of dollar tide will have a chance to come to an end.

Fan Wumian already knew most of the information the financial analyst mentioned, and even knew more about it than the analyst did.

However, some of the latest data and predictions did give him some inspiration.

From the moment he woke up in the morning, Fan Wumian had been troubled by the question of whether he should reduce his holdings, cash out, and wait and see.

Besides worrying that some people would continue to release huge positive news to squeeze out short sellers and force them to exit the market early, he also clearly remembered that the subprime crisis truly triggered a financial tsunami after the Beijing Olympics.

Following the bankruptcies or government takeovers of Lehman Brothers and Citibank, the mainland government seemingly had anticipated this and released a "4 trillion yuan stimulus plan," generating widespread news coverage.

Later, whenever people mentioned the surge in the mainland property market, they liked to regard the "4 trillion yuan plan" as a landmark turning point for the surge in housing prices. Fan Wumian inevitably heard about it and it was hard for him not to remember it.

Since the financial tsunami caused by the subprime crisis is expected to be delayed until the second half of next year, and given his lack of understanding of the specific details, he was naturally affected by the profit-taking and began to consider whether to cash out and wait for a while.

However, after reading the report in front of him, Fan Wumian became even more determined to continue shorting the stock.

The reason is simple.

Although he didn't remember the detailed timeline, he had a deep understanding of human nature.

Often, the interests of shareholders of large Wall Street corporations are not aligned with those of the companies themselves. Once these businessmen, who are preoccupied with making money, have successfully reduced their holdings and cashed out, and completed their new asset allocation, they may switch sides and start shorting for profit.

Take Goldman Sachs as an example again. It did something bizarre like shorting itself, selling subprime bonds to clients while betting on a market crash using CDS (credit default swaps).

Goldman Sachs recently used derivatives to "maintain a net short position" in the mortgage lending market, meaning that the size of its short positions was greater than its long positions, and thus successfully made huge profits from the subprime mortgage market's bear market.

Fan Wumian and the WM-Rogers hedge fund company he controlled worked hard for more than half a year, but the net profit related to the subprime market was probably less than one-third of Goldman Sachs' short-selling gains during the same period. The difference in size and resources was obvious, so it was only natural that they couldn't compete.

Driven by the profit-seeking nature of capital, once a group of powerful, well-connected, and insightful individuals from Wall Street and Washington flee first, they will undoubtedly contribute to the collapse of the subprime market, profiting from short selling to offset their other losses.

To put it bluntly, companies like the infamous Lehman Brothers belonged not only to the major shareholders but also to countless ordinary shareholders. If the major shareholders had a chance to escape and turn the tide, they would not hesitate to use the "corpse" of Lehman Brothers as a ladder, personally burning down the business empire they had built, and stepping over the ruins of millions of bankrupt families to try to preserve their own wealth.

The interests of the managers of those large Wall Street companies are not aligned with those of their companies, which led Fan Wumian to believe that the current market recovery was likely just a flash in the pan.

Since Washington is busy with internal strife and is unwilling and unable to completely save the market, and Wall Street elites are also busy escaping the leaky ship and do not want to pay additional sunk costs, the market collapse should be faster than previously guessed.

To avoid missing the opportunity, when the thought of "holding on" came to Fan Wumian's mind, he had a vague premonition that this was the right decision.

After all, there are still hundreds of millions of unrealized profits on the books. Given the extent of the damage to market confidence, it is almost impossible to return to the high point of the previous period. This means that the probability of losing all profits and starting to lose principal is extremely low.

Some short sellers, after being bluffed, immediately began to hold cash and wait and see, knowing that the subprime crisis and financial crisis would definitely erupt in full force, and that they still had enough chips to bet on.

Even if you're incredibly unlucky and lose everything, including your principal and profits, you can always double your initial investment next time and keep shorting. Eventually, you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Jane Zhang only stayed in Hong Kong for two days.

When she left, the wing-shaped temporary tattoo on her lower back was still fresh.

Although Fan Wumian praised it highly, he still advised Zhang Liangying to give up the idea of ​​getting a tattoo, mainly because he was worried that if someone took a picture of her, she would be subject to criticism and it would affect her image in the public eye.

afterwards.

Fan Wumian took a yacht out to sea to Wenggang Bay, an outer island of Sai Kung, for snorkeling, camping, and hiking. He enjoyed a leisurely vacation for two or three days until Zuo Ziyan called him to say that she had returned from Singapore. Only then did he return to the city and arrange a meal with her.

He would call her occasionally to chat, and he already knew everything about Zuo Ziyan's recent situation.

During their meal at the Shek O Country Club, Fan Wumian, while savoring the fresh grouper, said:

"These past few days may seem uneventful, but they've actually been quite exciting."

"My unrealized profit dropped to $427 million after four consecutive days of decline. I was almost tricked into liquidating my position and running away."

"A couple of days ago, things took an unexpected turn. The largest commercial mortgage lender in the United States was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the news of the worsening subprime mortgage crisis caused a collective plunge in Asian stock markets, resulting in a recovery of more than $3 million overnight."

"Last night, the Federal Reserve only lowered the discount rate for lending to commercial banks. The market generally believed that the bailout was not strong enough, and the US stock market fell again as a sign of weakness, which added more than $8200 million to my unrealized gains."

"Luckily, I didn't adjust my positions, otherwise I would have missed out on more than $390 million in profits, which would have kept me up at night."

Even though she was born into a so-called "small wealthy family," Zuo Ziyan still felt that Fan Wumian was too bold and that the scale of his business was simply outrageous.

She smiled and reminded him:
"Don't get too excited yet. The market has gone crazy lately, and nobody can understand it. I'm keeping an eye on the market for you. It seems that the island nation has started to hint that it will inject 1 trillion yen to rescue the market, and the European Central Bank is also preparing to increase its rescue efforts."

Fan Wumian raised his glass, tasted the ice wine produced by his winery, and replied:
"Whether it's island nations or the EU, they're all on the US's menu this time. Their weight isn't enough, so it shouldn't have a big impact. The core problem lies in the US subprime mortgage market. The roots have already started to rot. If you only water the leaves, you still can't save the whole pot of flowers."

"I've taken a more relaxed approach to all of this. I'm going to leave the empty positions alone for now and focus on taking care of other things."

"The parent company of Fei Le just agreed to sell to me for a full $3 million this morning. The South Korean company that bought out the South Korean operating rights for the Fei Le brand is a bit shady; they took the opportunity to ask me for an exorbitant price of $6000 million. I'm considering giving up the South Korean market since the annual profits are limited anyway, but the thought of the company being incomplete makes me feel uneasy." (End of Chapter)