Reborn in America, I am a legendary short seller on Wall Street.

Chapter 138 The Last Line of Defense
Logan, listening to Larry's words, also hurriedly looked at the price list.

At this moment, the first afternoon offer for U.S. Sugar has already dropped to $172.5, while the last offer for the stock in the morning was $180.75.

The stock price immediately dropped by 8%.

Logan was bewildered and turned to Larry, asking, "Is there some bad news? Like Congress rejecting the Republican bill?"

Larry frowned and shook his head. "No, these kinds of proposals don't get resolved in a day. Someone's manipulating the market, I don't know who did it... and they even chose to do it right when the market opened in the afternoon." As he spoke, Larry glanced at the clock on the wall; it was just past one o'clock in the afternoon.

"Someone made a profit and ran away?" Logan blurted out again.

"Unlike... now that the market is in an uptrend, insiders have plenty of time to sell shares to retail investors during the rise, so there's absolutely no need for them to dump the shares now!"

Larry frowned, a voice suddenly popping into his mind—thankfully he sold and closed the position, otherwise he would have lost the $11 again.

When faced with unusual stock price movements, Larry, who makes a living based on ticker tapes, wouldn't act rashly. This is because, at least at this moment, the ticker tapes clearly show a strong downward selling pressure. The ticker tapes won't explain the reasons, but it's obvious they're indicating a downward trend in stock prices…

As Larry frowned in thought, the customer standing in front of the quotation machine wore an even stranger expression. He pulled out a long strip of quotation sheets and said suspiciously,
"My God! What's going on? Why are all these sugar company quotes? There are at least six of them!"

Larry was taken aback, then quickly took a few steps forward and looked closer.

Indeed, the paper tapes in the customers' hands were all from American Sugar Corporation. The price went from $172 to two $170s, and then fell below $170, which drove the sugar company's stock price down to about $165 and three-quarters!
The sugar company's stock price is plummeting! How is this possible? What's going on?

Larry's face was full of questions, his eyes fixed on the latest U.S. sugar prices that the young man had filled in and then erased on the price list, his brow furrowed.

Such a high volume of transactions doesn't seem like a stock price collapse; it looks more like someone is deliberately dumping shares!

Before the young man could finish filling in the last price from American Sugar, the latest prices arrived. This time, at least three out of the ten paper tapes were from American Sugar.

The young man tending the quoting machine noticed that the customer calling out his price was only focused on the paper tape, so he quickly stood up and shouted towards the quoting board.
"American sugar, $160, $158 and three-quarters, $155!"

The quote scribe was going crazy! As usual, he was supposed to write every quote on the blackboard, not just the last one, so he had to write, erase, and write again.

Logan rushed over and hurriedly asked Larry, "Won't this stock drop below $100 in one go? If that happens, all our profits will be wiped out!"

Larry frowned, turned around and said, "No way... This stock was supposed to go up today. This is probably a deliberate sell-off, not some negative news. Besides, what benefit would insiders gain from selling below $100..."

When asked, "What good would it do for them?" Larry suddenly froze!

Yeah!
For ordinary traders, whether they are taking profits or deliberately dumping shares, there is no benefit in dumping shares in the current clearly upward trend, because they are going against the trend; but there is only one type of person who can make huge profits by dumping shares, or rather, who can avoid huge losses by dumping shares.

That's the Rostan Gang!
Today, Larry and Senator Kennedy have agreed to a two-pronged approach: on the one hand, to get people to place bets at the betting companies, and on the other hand, to take advantage of Senator Kennedy's "accident" to let the stock price of the American sugar industry soar freely. This is a win-win situation, enough to take down the Metropolitan Gaming Company, which is a powerful figure threatening Kennedy's protection.

But clearly, the other party will not sit idly by and wait for death. Instead, they want to take a desperate gamble and drive the stock price down to around $100 so that they can wipe out all the margin deposits placed in the betting bank for long positions in U.S. sugar!
Larry's mind became clear as he thought about this. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that only the Rothschild gang would be capable of dumping shares at any cost during a stock price surge.

At that time, the trading system of the US stock exchange was flawed. The floor traders of various brokerages would keep placing orders on the floor with the clients' order forms.

However, orders that cannot be executed, such as those with excessively low price limits, will be returned by floor traders and will not remain on the floor.

This will lead to a surge in sell orders, which may accelerate the sell-off, because there are simply no orders available at lower prices to absorb the selling pressure.

With that thought in mind, Larry didn't hesitate any longer. He turned to the traders at Reading and shouted, "Place an order now, a limit order, at $110! Use all the funds in my account to buy as much as you can!"

The portly manager and trader at the front desk were startled and immediately began placing orders as Larry instructed.

The fat manager roughly estimated that Larry's account currently had $11.2 in funds, and with 4x leverage, he could use up to $44.8. At a trading price of $110, that would be enough to buy about 4000 shares of U.S. Sugar.

After the front desk manager finished calculating, he immediately added to the trader, "The client's margin can buy 4000 shares. Place a buy order for 4000 shares at $110!"

“No, place an order for 5000 shares! I’ll cover the margin.” Larry added as he approached.

The portly manager was taken aback and quickly turned to the trader, saying, "Do as the client says, and be quick, 5000 shares!"

Larry watched the traders in the telegraph room sending telegrams with the telegraph operator, their faces solemn.

He didn't know exactly how many shares the other party had, or how low they could drive the stock price down, but he had already placed all the shares he could at $110 for U.S. Sugar as a stopgap measure!
If the other side's momentum is too strong and the price eventually falls below $110, then Larry can just accept his bad luck, since he did his best anyway.

Furthermore, if my order enters the exchange and the price has already fallen below $100, sweeping up all the betting orders arranged by Kennedy, there's nothing I can do. Like I said, I've done my best!

However, this is a sure-fire way for Larry to make money.

Because Larry is no longer just betting against the bank, but actually owns those stocks.

If it's the betting companies dumping shares, then Larry and Logan's stocks won't be shaken out. If all else fails, they can hold onto them for a while longer, since the stocks are theirs anyway.

Even if the sugar company's stock price does fall below $100 and then returns to around $90, so what? The New York Stock Exchange uses a T+5 settlement date. This means that even if Larry's margin is insufficient to liquidate all the shares, he only needs to gather the necessary margin on the fifth day to keep them.

If it really is just a sell-off, Larry believes his stocks will not only not lose money, but will actually make money.

Because the stock price of American sugar companies is rising.

A sell-off can only be a sneak attack, not a way to control the rise and fall of stock prices. Larry's eyes were filled with confidence again.
.
On the price chart, the stock price of U.S. Sugar was falling steadily. After breaking below $150, the stock entered an accelerated phase, plummeting to below $130...

Then it was $128, $125, $121...

Logan was on the verge of a breakdown as he watched the stock price plummet...

He was still looking forward to how much he could make from the $3860 price point when the market closed in the morning, but the stock almost fell back to its previous value by the afternoon.

However, there was something else that shocked Logan just now: Larry actually placed an order for 5000 shares at $110.

Regardless of how much money it would cost, Logan felt that Larry was taking a risk!

You, a 14-year-old retail investor, are behaving like a big player!
This is so unreasonable!

Can Larry protect the price of U.S. sugar with a mere 5000 shares?
Will it? Or won't it?

Logan stopped looking at the charts, his eyes unconsciously glancing at Larry...

Larry kept a close eye on the price chart. As time flew by and the price of American sugar continued to fall, Larry had no idea whether his order would be able to enter the market in time to support the price before it fell below $100...

The only consolation was that Larry realized that even if the other party dumped the shares, he would still need to confirm the transaction with each person who bought the shares, which would take a lot of time.

This prevents the other party from dumping shares without restraint.

This isn't like ordering with a computer in later times, where you can just dump something whenever you want.

Even if traders place orders quickly, they still have to confirm each one before they can initiate the next wave of selling, which buys them time to enter the market with their 5000 shares.

Unfortunately, these are the conditions for securities trading at this time, unless you go to New York, where trading would definitely be much faster, because it would save you from sending telegrams and the process of the other party translating them into order forms!

Yes, just like Mr. Porter said, the real masters should go to New York, to Wall Street!
At that moment, the idea of ​​heading to New York burned brighter in Larry's heart than ever before.

Finally, the crucial moment has arrived!

The young man at the price quote machine pulled out a strip of paper and shouted, "American Sugar, $110!"

Larry's face lit up with joy, but he immediately shook his head inwardly in denial.

No, no, the first offer doesn't mean anything, because it could be someone else's order that just happened to be placed at $110...

Let's wait and see...

Half a minute later, the young man called out again, holding the paper strip, "American Sugar Company, $110!"

Logan and the fat manager stared blankly at Larry, not even blinking. They both thought to themselves that if there was a second offer, it must be Larry's order for 5000 shares that had been sent to the exchange floor...

Larry remained unmoved. Even though his 5000 shares had been entrusted to them, he had no idea how many shares they had. What if they suddenly bought up all 5000 of his shares?
Half a minute later, the waiter pulled out another slip of paper and shouted,
"Sugar... still $110!"

Everyone remained on edge, fearing that the price would soon fall below $110 and head towards $100.

It was Huang Meitang's first time watching someone else trade, but with his keen intelligence, he immediately realized what the other party was doing and also knew that Larry had 5000 shares at $110.

Knowing that this was the most critical moment, Huang Meitang frowned and quietly waited for the next offer.

Larry was visibly nervous. He could imagine how fragile his thin order for 5000 shares would be in the face of a massive sell-off, as fragile as a reed...

Can we hold the $110 mark? If we can't completely uproot the Mets this time, it will be even more troublesome if they launch a counterattack later!
Larry stared intently at the price list, his ears perked up, eager to hear the next price...

The young man at the quoting machine, head down, stared at the paper tape. When he saw the abbreviation for "American Sugar" appear beforehand, he shouted out.
"The sugar industry..."

However, the subsequent price is still stuck on the quoting machine and hasn't appeared yet...

Larry frowned, thinking to himself, "That little pause of yours is so annoying!"

To me, it's just as annoying as reading a web novel in my past life and having a chapter cut off at the most crucial moment!
Finally, the young man saw the sugar price, stood up, and shouted in the direction of Larry and the other customers.
"Sugar, $112 and a quarter!"

(End of this chapter)