Rebirth 02, the Celestial Being Told Me to Stop Pretending

For the past two days, he has locked himself in his office, repeatedly checking all of Netflix's publicly available information.

Prospectus, quarterly reports, analyst ratings, news reports.

Every piece of information matched his memories from his past life, but they wouldn't tell him the most crucial question: would the financial report data change?

Liu Yifei called on Sunday evening.

"Are you in the office?"

"Um."

"Working overtime again?"

"Um."

"Have you been under a lot of stress lately?"

Lu Chen didn't reply.

"Lu Chen," she said, "what do you earn money for?"

He froze for a moment.

"For making a movie," he said.

"And what is the purpose of making movies?"

"for……"

He paused.

The answer in my past life was "to win".

He defeated everyone, until no one could stop him anymore.

After his rebirth, he thought the answer would be the same.

But now that Liu Yifei has asked this question, the first image that pops into his mind is not box office numbers or company valuation.

Instead, she stood on a Hong Kong street, looking at him with bright eyes, and said, "I knew you could do it."

"So that," he said, "I don't want to let the people around me down."

There was silence for a few seconds on the other end of the phone.

Then she laughed, very softly.

"Then don't overwork yourself. The people around you want you to be happy."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Chen stared at his phone screen for a long time in a daze.

Then he opened the Netflix options position interface and stared at the number showing a 30% unrealized loss.

Turn off the computer and go to sleep.

Monday, April 21st.

Lu Chen arrived at the office at 5:00 AM before the US stock market opened.

He brewed a pot of strong tea, turned on all three computers, and brought up Netflix's transaction interface.

At 8:30, the financial report was released on time.

His hand hovered over the keyboard, waiting for three seconds, then five seconds.

Then I pressed the refresh button.

Revenue reached US$53 million, a year-on-year increase of 71%.

The number of subscribers has surpassed one million, exceeding analysts' expectations of nine hundred thousand.

Earnings per share were $0.03, while the market expected a loss of $0.01.

The numbers match.

Everything was exactly the same as he remembered.

Lu Chen closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When I opened my eyes, the after-hours stock price had jumped from 15.8 yuan to 19.2 yuan, an increase of 21.5%.

His call option, with a strike price of 17.50, was originally deeply out-of-the-money, but has now become in-the-money.

The stock price is $19.20, and the option price is at least $3.

It has increased nearly fourfold.

When Wang Yan arrived at work, he saw Lu Chen sitting in front of his computer with a half-finished cup of tea in front of him and a smile on his lips that Wang Yan had never seen before.

"It went up?" Wang Yan asked tentatively.

"It's gone up," Lu Chen said.

"How many?"

"Twenty-one percent."

Wang Yan paused for two seconds, then plopped down in a chair and let out a long sigh.

I held my breath for six days.

He stiffened his neck and said, "I'm about to have a heart attack."

US stocks opened on April 22.

Netflix shares opened at $19.80 and surged to $20.30 within minutes.

Lu Chen sold call options in batches, with an average transaction price of 3.15 yuan for every 100 lots, recovering 31,500 US dollars.

Cost is 8,000, profit is 23,500.

They made a net profit of nearly three times their initial investment.

He was not in a hurry to sell those two thousand shares.

His stock holdings are for the long term, and he plans to hold them until at least the end of the year. But his US stock account has already grown from $200,000 to just over $230,000.

This is just the beginning.

Over the next few days, he traded Yahoo and Amazon earnings options using the same method and made a small profit.

Then, before Apple released its second-quarter report, Lu Chen used a combination of stock and options to bet that Apple's performance would exceed expectations.

On April 27, Apple released its financial report, with both revenue and profit exceeding market expectations.

The stock price rose from $11.90 to $12.60, and his 3,500 shares of Apple had a paper profit of $24,000.

With his previous Netflix profits, his US stock account has surpassed $260,000.

On the A-share market, Changan Automobile has finally started to rise.

On April 28, Changan Automobile released a preliminary earnings announcement for the first quarter, with net profit increasing by 420% year-on-year.

The stock price opened at 11.8 yuan and rose to 12.5 yuan at one point during the session.

Lu Chen's three million shares have a paper profit of over six hundred thousand.

He didn't sell it.

He knew the real market conditions would be revealed in May.

After the May Day holiday, Changan Automobile's price will rise from twelve yuan to eighteen yuan.

Selling now means throwing away half of the profits you've already made.

However, the process of holding the shares was more difficult than expected.

On May 12, Changan Automobile's stock price plummeted during trading, falling from 15 yuan to 13.8 yuan, a single-day drop of more than 8%.

After the market closed that day, his unrealized profit in his A-share account dropped from 1.2 million to 800,000.

Wang Yan asked him if he was panicking.

He said he wasn't worried.

But that night he sat alone in his office until 2 a.m., repeatedly confirming one thing: had the logic behind Changan Automobile's rise changed?

No.

Revenue growth is still ongoing, institutions are still increasing their holdings, and the industry remains prosperous.

The stock price drop doesn't mean the logic has changed; it means someone is selling off their shares.

He'll stick to it as long as the logic remains unchanged.

On May 20th, Changan Automobile's stock price broke through 16 yuan.

On May 28th, it broke through the 17 yuan mark.

On June 5th, it broke through 18 yuan.

Lu Chen sold 300,000 shares in batches around 18.2 yuan, with an average transaction price of 18.15 yuan.

A total of 5,445,000 yuan was recovered.

With a principal of three million, the profit was two million four hundred and forty-five thousand yuan.

The rate of return is 81.5%.

In Hong Kong, Tencent officially listed on June 16.

The offering price is HK$3.70.

Lu Chen subscribed to 400,000 shares for HK$1.5 million, which is equivalent to an average price of HK$3.70.

On its first day of trading, Tencent's stock closed at 4.15 yuan, up 12 percent.

His target price isn't four or five dollars, it's forty dollars. Tenfold increase in five years.

By the end of June, Lu Chen had compiled a list of all the assets in all his accounts.

A-share account: After clearing out my Changan Automobile shares, the total principal and profit amounted to RMB 5,445,000.

He hasn't found any new targets in the A-share market yet, so he transferred all the money into a money market fund, waiting for the next opportunity.

Hong Kong stock account: 400,000 shares of Tencent, with a market value of HK$1.68 million based on the closing price of HK$4.20, which is approximately RMB1.78 million.

Including the small amount in the money market fund, the total is approximately 1.8 million RMB.

US stock account: The main holdings include 20,000 shares of NetEase, 3,500 shares of Apple, and 2,000 shares of Netflix. In addition to cash and some scattered holdings, the total assets of the account are about US$380,000, which is about RMB 3 million.

The three accounts together totaled 10.24 million RMB.

Two months ago, his total net worth was 6.37 million.

The number is now 10.24 million.

Net profit of 3.87 million, a return of 60.8%.