I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 450 A Day in the Life of Wang Decai

The Shencheng Futures Building is located on Century Avenue in Lujiazui. Floors two through eight house the trading hall of the Shencheng Metal Exchange, an international conference center, and related office facilities. Floors nine through twenty-seven contain office space for domestic and international financial, futures, and securities brokerage firms.

Wang Decai's futures trading studio is located on the 12th floor of the building.

Wang Decai is 40 years old this year. He started investing in stocks in his twenties and later moved into the futures market. He can be considered a senior financial investor. Through his hard work over the years, he has earned nearly 4000 million yuan and is considered a big player in the futures market.

At 8:30 a.m., Wang Decai drove his 2009 Mercedes-Benz C200 into the underground parking lot, parked the car, and took the elevator upstairs.

You might bump into acquaintances in the elevator and greet each other.

He'd been working at his studio in this building for two years and had gotten to know a few people. Some were fund managers from investment companies, others were securities firms, and still others were just big investors like himself. They all addressed each other with various forms of "Manager."

For example, today, Wang Decai met a middle-aged man of similar age to him.

Wang Decai only knew that his surname was Zhang, and that he was also a big player in stock and futures trading. Like him, he rented an office in the building, apparently on the 16th floor, but he had never been there.

"Good morning, Mr. Wang," the man greeted with a smile, looking sharp and energetic in his suit and tie.

Everyone here is impeccably dressed, and Wang Decai is no exception.

"Good morning, Mr. Zhang," Wang Decai replied.

"The weather has been nice these past few days, not a cloud in the sky." They chatted casually in the elevator.

“Yes, the rainy season is coming soon, and it’s annoying to have rain every day,” Wang Decai chimed in.

"Mr. Wang, did you see the news yesterday? The National Bureau of Statistics released the April CPI, which rose 3.4% year-on-year."

"I've checked. Inflationary pressures remain, but the PPI has dropped by 0.7%, a stark contrast," Wang Decai replied.

"Yes, just like the weather. It's sunny in Pudong, but it's raining heavily in Zhoushan."

The two chatted casually, mostly about the weather and some public financial news, never mentioning words like futures or stocks.

Upon reaching the 12th floor, Wang Decai exited the elevator and headed towards his studio.

The studio is not large, just one room of about 30 square meters. The rent here is very expensive, calculated on a daily basis, at 5.5 yuan per square meter per day. In addition, there is a monthly property management fee of 28 yuan, also calculated per square meter, a parking fee of 500 yuan per month, and an air conditioning overtime fee of 0.5 yuan per hour. The monthly expenses are not small.

Of course, there are advantages to moving here for work. You can meet many colleagues in the industry and get some information.

Another thing is that it's prestigious to work here; after all, we're considered successful people back home.

When Wang Decai entered his studio, a young woman in her twenties was wiping dust with a rag. She greeted him as soon as she saw him come in.

Good morning, Mr. Wang!

"Good morning," Wang Decai replied, placing his briefcase on the table and plopping down in his writing chair.

The girl's name is Wang Ru. She is the daughter of a distant relative of the wife's family. She graduated from a vocational college in Shanghai with a major in finance and economics. She became his assistant through the introduction of a relative.

The so-called assistant is actually just doing odd jobs, such as cleaning, answering and transferring phones, organizing documents, collecting information, and doing some auxiliary tasks. She is absolutely not allowed to participate in the actual operation.

The girl was very diligent; as soon as she saw him arrive, she quickly made him some tea and placed the cup on the table.

Wang Decai took a satisfied sip of tea and asked, "Wang Ru, how's the information I asked you to collect about US soybeans and domestic soybean meal coming along?"

"I've collected a lot of them and sent the links to your QQ," Wang Ru quickly replied.

"Okay, go ahead and do your thing."

Wang Decai turned on his computer, logged into QQ, and carefully read through each link one by one. The information Wang Ru had collected was fairly comprehensive, but of course, it was only publicly available information.

The global La Niña climate phenomenon is intensifying.
North America is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years.
Soybean production is expected to decline in states such as Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota.
However, this news was no longer news to Wang Decai.

After looking at it for a while and finding nothing interesting, he opened his futures trading software and carefully analyzed the soybean meal candlestick chart. Today is June 5, 2012, and the soybean meal futures market is fluctuating very steadily with nothing noteworthy.

Wang Decai visited the Hexun Finance Forum, a place he frequented. Many retail investors were posting various opinions, but Wang Decai simply read and remained silent. Sure enough, one retail investor posted a complaint: "What's wrong with soybean meal lately? It's neither rising nor falling, how is anyone supposed to make money like this?!"

Someone immediately replied to the post, saying, "You're still not satisfied after a 30% increase in the past few months?!"

"Be content, my ass! I'm shorting!"

The subsequent replies were all insults and had no value whatsoever.

After browsing the posts for a while, Wang Decai lit a "Huazi" cigarette and started to ponder it.

Previously, all soybean meal futures contracts had surged, especially the M1301 contract, which saw a huge increase. Now, the market is calm.

Having traded futures for many years, he knew from his experience that the current market situation was just a brief calm before a fierce battle, with both the bulls and bears gathering strength, and a major battle was about to break out.

Short or long?

this is a problem.

He's been thinking about this problem a lot lately.

Opening ceremony, smoking, analysis.
After a morning of fussing, he finally made a decision: to short sell.

The reason is simple: although a reduction in soybean production seems inevitable, soybean meal futures have already seen a huge increase and are unlikely to continue rising.

Once the decision was made, Wang Decai did not hesitate and established a short position of 10000 lots of soybean meal near 3500 yuan!
According to the rules of soybean meal futures trading, one lot is 10 tons, and a 5% margin is required, which means he invested 17 million yuan this time!
As usual, after completing a big transaction, he would light a cigarette, take out a one-yuan coin from his pocket, and play a game of heads or tails.

Heads up means you win, tails down means you lose.

The coin was tossed high into the air, bounced a few times on the table, and then settled down, finally showing tails.

But Wang Decai was not discouraged.

Because he knew in his heart that this was just a psychological comfort. Based on his many years of experience, the outcome of each coin transaction had absolutely no relation to whether he made a profit or loss in that transaction.

If it lands tails the first time, you can toss it a few more times for good luck, and it will land heads.

So he tossed it again.

It's the reverse side!

Throw it again!

Still the reverse side!

Wang Decai suddenly had a bad feeling. Had he really made the wrong choice this time?!
Throw it again!

Finally, it's a positive result.

As expected, it was just an uncertain probability. Wang Decai put the coin into his pocket and stopped paying attention, focusing on the dial.

Unbeknownst to him, at the same time, someone in a villa in Shanghai also began to make their move.

"Hey, Old Coconut, I'm getting ready to build a position, what about you?"

"Tian Hao from Yong'an Futures and Yan Qingliang from Guotou Futures will both be arrested one after another."

“Ge Weidong? Ignore him, Haitang has already gone inside.”

"Okay, okay, we'll go in in batches!"

The caller was Lin Guangmao, and his strategy was to go long on the main soybean meal futures contract M1301!

(End of this chapter)