The Great Sage Returns from Ten Years of Imprisonment

After arranging the strategies for the joint securities investment team for tonight's and tomorrow morning's trading, Lingyun prepared to leave for the upstairs office area.

Just as he finished packing his things, Mr. Lou suddenly knocked on the door and came in.

After greeting everyone upon entering, Chairman Lou said helplessly:

"Xiao Ling, I've got the basic details of the reward plan you just announced. I must say, you're very generous, and everyone on the team is extremely happy."

"But have you considered that your generous cash rewards are putting us financial institutions in a difficult position? Should we follow suit or not?"

"We are a centrally-owned financial institution with a special nature, shouldering the mission of maintaining national financial stability and carrying out major investments. It is simply impossible for us to offer such high incentives."

Listening to Lou Dong's complaints, Ling Yun chuckled.

"Don't rush, let's sit down and talk slowly."

As he spoke, he pointed to the sofa in the reception area and walked out from behind his desk.

Chairman Lou sized him up and then nodded.

Then he turned around and walked into the reception area, where he sat down on the sofa.

Ling Yun followed, poured a cup of tea for Chairman Lou, and then sat down on the single sofa.

As soon as he sat down, he immediately began to explain with a smile.

"Chairman Lou, it is precisely because I know that CIC, CICC, and China Aviation Oil are special entities and cannot distribute large-scale rewards that I am announcing this reward plan in my personal capacity."

"My main purpose in doing this was to reassure all team members. It was for both security and confidentiality reasons, to prevent anyone in the team from secretly selling trade secrets for financial gain."

"I'm not bragging, but any one of the investment strategies I devised for the United Securities investment team could fetch an astronomical price on the international financial market!"

Mr. Lou paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

"That's right, the investment strategies you devised are indeed invaluable; no one in the financial investment field wouldn't want them."

"Even if we weren't in a cooperative relationship, CIC would still be willing to spend a lot of money to buy your investment strategy; it would be worth any price."

"Haha, you flatter me too much. I dare not accept such a priceless compliment."

Ling Yun smiled and exchanged a few polite words before picking up his teacup and taking a sip of tea.

Then he put down his teacup and continued his conversation.

"With a team of over two hundred people, some of them are bound to be facing financial difficulties. Coupled with long hours of intense work and limited income growth, they might easily become emotionally unbalanced and start having other ideas."

"For example, they might use my investment strategies to secretly open accounts overseas for investment, or even act as corporate spies to sell my investment strategies to others or overseas financial institutions."

"This could very well expose the existence of the joint securities investment team, which would be a huge problem. That's why I gave everyone such high bonuses. This will significantly increase the security threshold for team members to leak information."

"Furthermore, I gave everyone an expectation: once the cooperation concludes, I will distribute generous rewards based on the investment performance at that time. Based on this alone, I believe the vast majority of team members will keep quiet..."

Lou Dong fell silent, but his eyes, as he looked at Ling Yun, revealed an undisguised shock.

After Ling Yun finished explaining the situation, he pondered for a moment and then sincerely expressed his feelings.

"I must say, your grasp of human nature is truly astounding, and incredibly generous!"

"That's really strange to me. How come you've become such a cunning and shrewd old fox at such a young age?"

"Haha, I'll take that as a compliment."

Ling Yun chuckled and then added a few more words.

"I wouldn't call myself cunning, but I'm absolutely convinced that you have to give up something to gain something!"

Upon hearing this, Chairman Lou immediately gave a thumbs up.

"Excellent! You have vision and courage!"

Five or six minutes later, the two of them walked out of the office together.

Lou Dong turned and went to President Chen's office, while Ling Yun went upstairs to the joint investment team's office area.

As he entered the upstairs office area, he was immediately greeted with enthusiastic applause and words of thanks.

The way people looked at him became even more fervent than before.

The reason for this is twofold: firstly, the phenomenal trading and astonishing investment profits of the past few days.

The second reason, of course, is the high reward that made everyone ecstatic.

From the moment he entered the office area, Lingyun kept greeting everyone with a smile and enthusiasm.

When he walked through the office area and arrived at the door of his office, General Manager Xie and Secretary Zhou, who had caught wind of his arrival, were already waiting there.

Besides them, there was also Zhang Lu and his assistant, who were visiting the place for the first time.

Even now, a hint of shock still lingered in their eyes.

To some extent, they were in the know, but they were still taken aback by the size of the joint investment team.

From the moment they arrived in the afternoon, they were struck by the large number of people working there, yet their spirits were high.

When they learned that Ling Yun was going to give out high rewards to so many people at the same time, their jaws nearly dropped to the ground; they couldn't believe it.

As they got to work, they realized that the reality was far more exaggerated than they had imagined!

After exchanging greetings, Ling Yun invited President Xie and the others into the office, but asked Attorney Zhang and his assistant to wait in the adjacent conference room.

I'll call Zhang Lu and the others over after I finish discussing work with General Manager Xie and the others.

Zhang Lu naturally had no objection to his arrangement.

After entering the office and closing the door, Ling Yun immediately said:

"Let's talk about the situation in the international crude oil futures market. Has it been plummeting?"

Upon hearing this, President Xie and Secretary Zhou all burst into laughter.

Following that, General Manager Xie began to introduce the relevant situation.

"You're right, Lingyun. Since the beginning of this morning, international oil prices have been falling continuously without a single effective rebound."

"As of now, international oil prices have plummeted from an opening price of $121 to around $114, a drop of more than 5.5%."

"Faced with the astonishing drop, everyone is itching to close their positions. If we do, we can make a fortune by switching from long to short positions."

The others exchanged glances and nodded in agreement.

"That's right. Under normal circumstances, a 5.5% drop would be considered a crash. If you don't take profits now, when will you?"

"I think so too. Why don't we harvest this batch first, and then short it when international oil prices rebound a bit?"

As he said this, several investment directors were eager to make a move.

Ling Yun glanced at them and shook his head decisively.

"We absolutely cannot close our positions and exit the market now. If we close our positions at this price, we are very likely to miss out on further gains and will inevitably lose a large portion of our profits."

"Based on my assessment, international oil prices are very likely to fall below $110 today. Specifically, this should happen after the US stock market opens, and it will likely create a cross-asset correlation with the US stock market..."

When they heard the expected price he gave, Mr. Xie and his team were stunned.

"A drop below $110 would mean at least a 9% decline. Yesterday's surge of 15.7% has been wiped out overnight. This price action is terrifying!"

"Wow! If that's really the case, we can't close our positions now, otherwise we'll not only miss out on four points of profit, but we'll also miss out on future gains."

Ling Yun smiled and nodded, but his tone suddenly became serious.

"Even if international oil prices fall by more than 10% today, we cannot close our positions. Exiting at this point would mean missing out on potential gains."

"The downward trend in international oil prices has been established, and they will continue to plummet, possibly falling until the end of the year."

"Not only should we not close our positions, but the investment departments of each airline should also hold onto their positions and not be swayed by short-term gains."

At this point, he suddenly changed the subject.

"There's another important reason that everyone must take seriously: don't be the one to stick your neck out and get attacked!"

"According to reliable sources, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is likely to launch an investigation into abnormal oil price fluctuations due to yesterday's frenzied short squeeze."

"The focus of the investigation should be on contract expiration squeezes and suspected manipulation, cracking down on investment speculation. At this time, it's better to remain inactive than to act!"

"Ah! The CFTC has made its move. These bastards have no sportsmanship!"

With a gasp of surprise, everyone was stunned.