Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 283 Two things

Jack Ma nearly dropped his wine glass. He took three steps at a time and walked up to Chen Xuebing, looking the young man in a suit up and down.

"Is it really you?" Jack Ma lowered his voice. "That Taobao shop owner who sells...phones?"

Chen Xuebing smiled slightly: "Mr. Ma has a good memory."

Liu Chuan, listening from the side, was completely bewildered: "You guys know each other too?"

Before Jack Ma could speak, Chen Xuebing interrupted with a smile, "I've met Mr. Ma once before."

Jack Ma stopped, a complex expression flashing in his eyes.

Before Chen Xuebing arrived, he had already heard Liu Chuan recount the glorious deeds of the soon-to-be-present CEO Chen, who was said to have a very ambitious plan to invest billions in 3G.

He's now unsure whether Mr. Chen opened his Taobao shop as a hobby or something else entirely.

However, Taobao did indeed copy other people's seller rating ideas, and even Alipay's current top ads were bought from them.

This is ultimately not a very honorable thing.

This year, he served as a judge on "Win in China" alongside Liu Chuan and Shi Yuzhu, where he promoted his new internet thinking and mentioned Alipay's six-word phrase "breaking down payment trust barriers," which made him famous and regarded by many young people as a mentor for their entrepreneurial dreams.

When he was talking eloquently on the show, he never dreamed that the person on the other end of the phone would sit at the same table with him and have such a high status in the industry.

Seeing that Chen Xuebing took the initiative to cover it up, he was still grateful and immediately laughed heartily: "It's good that we met! It's good that we met! President Chen gave me a lot of inspiration back then!"

Those present became even more curious upon hearing this.

Chen Xuebing looks so young, at most in his twenties, yet he still inspired Jack Ma "back then"?
"Xuebing," Liu Chuan led him to a booth, "Come sit down, I have some questions for you."

Chen Xuebing patted Ma Yun on the back and whispered, "We'll talk later." Then he winked at Lin Huixiang, signaling her to sit down, and walked over to Liu Chuan.

As he sat down, he caught a glimpse of Jack Ma out of the corner of his eye as he went back to the window to drink alone, seemingly out of place in the room.

Jack Ma joined the Taishan Club but left shortly afterward, claiming that he was too busy with work to attend the gatherings regularly.

But looking at the situation today, it's clear that the members of Taishan Club are all involved in capital, while he is still a simple entrepreneur. Even though Alibaba was valued at $25 billion by Yahoo last year and received a $10 billion investment for a 40% stake, it was all just fluff. The cash portion was actually only $2.5 million. Yahoo China's technological assets have now basically proven to be useless.

Moreover, after these rounds of financing, Jack Ma holds a 6% stake, and his team holds a total of 31%, making him the second largest shareholder.

He doesn't have much personal wealth, and his decision-making power is unstable. He will need Masayoshi Son's support to take control of Alibaba in the future.

Even now, Jack Ma is still forcing himself to sit at the table, putting on a brave face.

The table where Chen Xuebing sat down was the core capital circle of the Taishan Club.

"We also have some old friends from the business world coming over today. Let's sit and chat for a bit while we wait for them! Xuebing, Guangchang, you know them, so I won't introduce them. This is Mr. Lu from Oceanwide Holdings, and Mr. Duan from BBK Electronics!"

Liu Chuan introduced the three men and poured him a glass of wine.

Duan Yongping waved his hand and smiled, "President Liu, I am no longer involved in the daily management of BBK. I am now making personal investments."

"Hey, you're the emperor emeritus! Major decisions still have to be made by you!" Liu Chuan emphasized again, afraid that Chen Xuebing didn't know Duan Yongping.

"I heard that President Duan won the bid for lunch with Buffett this year, and even brought a young man with him?" Chen Xuebing asked, indicating that he knew the other person's identity.

In fact, there was no one he didn't know about anyone present.

Guo Guangchang, needless to say, is the second richest man in Shanghai, with a net worth of billions. He has connections in both the Shanghai and Zhejiang business circles and is known as the man with the most extensive business connections.

A few years ago, Lu Zhiqiang used Guangcai Investment to acquire Nanyou—the same Nanyou where Ren Zhengfei used to work—and used Nanyou as a shell company to list Panhai's real estate sector. Now he is vying for Minsheng Bank's equity and has also acquired a commercial and residential real estate sector of over one million square meters in Beijing. He has been making big moves all the time.

Duan Yongping founded BBK Electronics, incubated OPPO, and later Vivo, which separated from BBK Electronics. He also made a fortune in the investment field, with NetEase's US stock investment alone yielding a profit of over 10 billion yuan in 2001.

Moreover, this year he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to have dinner with Buffett, bringing his son and a young man with him.

Chen Xuebing was very interested in that young man.

His name is Huang Zheng.

Duan Yongping waved his hand: "Hehe, he's a kid who works at Google. I was introduced to him by Mr. Ding from NetEase. He's quite quick to learn."

This industry is too realistic. Although Huang Zheng is young and promising and a few years older than Chen Xuebing, he is still just a "youngster" with some understanding at this moment.

Chen Xuebing planned to ask a few more questions.

Lu Zhiqiang had already raised his glass and said:
"Mr. Chen, I heard that you've been making a lot of moves in the secondary market lately, and your returns have been very high."

Chen Xuebing raised his glass and clinked it with Lu Zhiqiang's.

"It was just luck. Don't worry about Oceanwide's situation, Mr. Lu. We always diversify our investments and will exit soon."

"Luck?" Liu Chuan shook his head. "A return of over 500% is no small feat. I'm curious, where did you get your information from?"

This question gets to the heart of the matter, and Liu Chuan suspects that there are ulterior motives behind him.

Chen Xuebing laughed, not minding that he continued to misunderstand: "In this information age, whoever can obtain information faster and more accurately will gain the upper hand. Of course, we have our own sources of information, but it's not as simple as having information to win, as Mr. Liu thinks. We also need comprehensive and professional analysis and operational capabilities."

Liu Chuan was not satisfied with this vague answer and gave Duan Yongping a wink.

"I heard Mr. Chen is investing in the US? Is it secondary or primary investment?" Duan Yongping asked.

He was invited by Liu Chuan to be the examiner today, so naturally he should be the one to ask these kinds of questions.

Chen Xuebing, however, brought up a field he was not familiar with:
"Secondary market, futures."

Duan Yongping was in a bit of a dilemma.

"Futures? Specifically, what do you do?" He asked halfway through, then suddenly realized the question was too confidential and changed the subject: "Your research on the Long March is so extensive?"

Chen Xuebing laughed again.

"Mr. Duan, you have a conservative approach, focusing on the intrinsic value of companies. While this is relatively stable in the long run, it is too passive. We focus more on offense, studying market policies and the flow trends of large funds. Therefore, the stock market and futures are the same for us."

"Oh?" Upon hearing this, Duan Yongping lowered his head and wiped his hands with a napkin. "I didn't learn much from my conversations with Buffett, but we do have a consensus: don't touch what you're not familiar with. Can you research the entire market? Can I ask you how much you earn from US futures trading?" Chen Xuebing smiled, did not argue, and took out a mobile phone from his pocket.

At this, all four of them had a bright look in their eyes.

"Mr. Chen, is this the new phone you're making?" Liu Chuan asked in surprise, leaning closer.

Chen Xuebing nodded, swiped to unlock, and then, to the astonishment of the others, quickly opened an email account using his UC Browser browsing history.

After about a minute of reading, a record and a picture were retrieved, and then the phone was handed to Duan Yongping.

As Duan Yongping stared intently at the image, he deliberately used two fingers to zoom in on the key data section.

"Oh, Mr. Chen, is this how people in the tech industry usually work?" Guo Guangchang exclaimed in surprise.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Upon hearing this, Shi Yuzhu, who was not far away, immediately came over shouting loudly.

One gets closer.

"This new equipment? A PDA?"

"Mr. Chen's cell phone."

"Such a big screen? Mr. Chen, may I take a look?"

Shi Yuzhu's voice attracted the attention of others.

Shen Guojun from Yintai Group and Lu Weiding from Wanxiang Group, two groups of Zhejiang businessmen, came over.

When Jack Ma heard that it belonged to Chen Xuebing, he was startled and quickly put down his wine glass to take a look.

Chen Xuebing smiled faintly, arms crossed. He had brought it out on purpose, and seeing the person in question arrive, he didn't stop them from watching.

The moment he saw Jack Ma, he decided he had two things to do that day.

After Duan Yongping finished looking at the data on his phone and was about to return it to Chen Xuebing, Chen Xuebing generously smiled and said:

"Mr. Shi, you can take a look at it. Just give it back to me later. Don't take pictures. This is an engineering prototype and cannot be released to the public for the time being."

Shi Yuzhu was delighted when he heard this, as he always liked new things that weren't available on the market.

"Don't worry! I'll take it and study it!"

He knew they were talking, so he took his phone and left.

After the onlookers left, Chen Xuebing looked at Duan Yongping and asked, "Mr. Duan, what do you think of this result?"

Duan Yongping's eyes were unreadable.

The phone and the data on it gave him two shocks.

"You made more than three times your initial investment in just over three months?"

Now, everyone perked up.

Especially Liu Chuan, who was surrounded by a bunch of people just now, he couldn't see the data clearly at all, and he couldn't understand those curves either.

Chen Xuebing smiled calmly: "It's less than three times the initial investment. It started at 500 million, then I invested another 80, bringing the total cost to 580 million. Now it's 2100 million."

The profits from US futures were actually a stroke of luck.

In June, the soybean futures contract rose from over 580 cents to 1060 cents, earning over 4 million yuan in short-term contracts. Then, another outbreak of bird flu occurred in the southern United States. Upon hearing the news, those foreign guys immediately called him. After discussing it, they all shifted their positions to corn, and as a result, corn prices rose again.

Soybean futures prices did not drop immediately.

But it was this news of bird flu that saved him.

As the July-September contracts rolled over and the news of avian flu gradually subsided, short-term soybean contracts in the US began to fall continuously, dropping by more than 50%, and longer-term soybean contracts were also affected, falling by more than 20%.

This wave has nothing to do with external market conditions; it's a short-term shakeout by funds, targeting leveraged positions.

If he had followed his original strategy of betting everything on soybeans with 5x leverage, he would have been wiped out long ago.

Of course, it doesn't matter if it explodes. He was mentally prepared when he started using leverage, knowing that soybean prices would definitely rise this year. At worst, he would just lose this one bet, and he could use the doubling-down method to continue betting and recover the losses.

I'm lucky now, I saved some money and even learned a free lesson: high leverage in the futures market can only be used for short-term trading, long-term leverage will eventually lead to losses.

Without unlimited ammunition behind it, the futures market is very difficult to navigate.

The current pullback in soybeans to lower levels presents an opportunity. The US account has already been leveraged to three times, and he plans to make one more profit before moving on to other investments.

But that doesn't stop him from showing off now.

"2100 million, US dollars?" Liu Chuan's expression was one of shock.

"Just a small test," Chen Xuebing said nonchalantly. "We plan to continue investing in US soybeans with leverage, and then switch to CDS contracts next year."

Those who heard this were completely stunned.

Everyone understands futures, but what are CDS contracts?
Duan Yongping, who obtained his green card several years ago, was also completely bewildered.

Chen Xuebing had no intention of explaining this complex issue, but instead gave them an even bigger shock.

"By the way, Mr. Duan, how much did you spend on lunch with Buffett? Could you take a picture of it for me too?"

“It’s quite expensive.” Duan Yongping hesitated for a moment. “What are you planning to ask Buffett for advice on? I asked him a lot of questions last time, and I can tell you about them.”

"No, that's not it. I heard he highly recommends the S&P 500 and has publicly bet that actively managed funds cannot outperform the S&P 500. I'm prepared to accept that bet."

Chen Xuebing recalled the last two weeks before his rebirth, when the S&P 500, recommended by Buffett in his will, suffered two consecutive circuit breakers, and a smile gradually appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)