My Age of Investment

   Chapter 1145 Short Selling Prohibition

New York.

  White exterior walls, oval windows, and the entrance of the United Club building full of retro style.

  Xia Jing walked out of the car and glanced at the Stars and Stripes on the second floor windowsill.

The    flag was shabby and slack on the flagpole like a ragged rag, like New Yorkers these days, listless.

   After showing the membership card, Xia Jingxing walked into the club.

   Different from the liveliness of the past, the interior of the club is a little depressing today.

  Xia Jingxing walked all the way through the hall, but not a few people were seen.

   The waiter brought Xia Jingxing to the door of a room, knocked on the door, and after getting a reply from the people in the room, the waiter gently opened the door.

   Then Xia Jingxing saw such a scene, the room was filled with smoke, Blankfein and Mai Jinxiong seemed to be in the clouds, smoking cigars, their faces full of sadness.

   "Daren, here you are!"

   Blankefan smiled and got up to greet him, and Mai Jinhe followed behind to say hello to Xia Jingxing.

After a few simple greetings, Xia Jingxing sat down next to the two of them, took the cigar handed by Mak Jinhe, lit it, took a sip, exhaled a large puff of smoke, and said, "I don't think the two of you are in a good mood today? "

   Blankfein smiled bitterly, "Daren, there may be no one else on Wall Street that can laugh except you."

  Xia Jingxing spread his hands, "No one could have predicted that Lehman would collapse."

   "If the Federal Reserve Bank of New York hadn't provided AIG with an $85 billion emergency loan last night, the world's largest insurance giant would have fallen."

  Mak Jin-truss said in a sigh: "There are voices in the market now that Morgan Stanley is going to collapse, a large number of hedge funds are shorting us, and at the same time they are trying their best to spread all kinds of rumors that are unfavorable to us, and wantonly suppress the stock price."

   Blankfein said with a serious expression: "The same is true of Goldman Sachs, the shorts are gathering, the stock price has fallen in a row, and the news interview car comes to our company every day to wander downstairs, wanting to get first-hand news of bankruptcy!"

   Xia Jingxing felt that there was something in the words of the two old men, as if they were implying that the short-selling behavior of Vision Capital had already made them unbearable.

   "Isn't the bailout bill already being drafted? Just last for a few days. The risks of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been cleared, which is different from Lehman's situation."

   Seeing Xia Jingxing pretending to be confused, Blankfein simply pointed out: "Daren, two months ago, when there was a problem with the two houses, the federal government issued a ban on "naked short selling".

  Although the ban was lifted again in August, under the current situation, the ban may be re-issued at any time and expanded to restrict all short selling. "

   Looking at Blankfein's serious eyes, Xia Jingxing did not go around in circles any more and replied, "We have arranged to close the positions one by one, you are the executors of the transaction, you should be very clear about this."

   "The strength of closing positions is not enough!"

   Blankfein shook his head gently, "If the short-selling ban is promulgated, institutions that hold short positions will be required to disclose short-selling information.

   For your business, we may attract hatred from the entire industry and even the government! "

  Xia Jingxing didn't say a word, this black pot is really not easy to carry, even with the size and network of the two major investment banks, it would be a lot of pressure to carry.

"what do you mean?"

  Blankefan looked straight at Xia Jingxing, "You have already made a lot of profit these days, stop it, don't go to earn that last coin."

  Xia Jingxing glanced at Mai Jinxiong, who kept nodding, "That's right! We urgently need the government's rescue now, and we don't dare to fight against Paulson, Bernanke and the others."

  Xia Jingxing pouted, what is the market economy? Where is freedom? Is there any king law?

  Damn, Lao Mei can't have fun!

   But it wasn't that Blankfein and Mai Jinzheng were alarmist. In Xia Jingxing's past life memory, because the market fell too much, the federal government did issue a very strict short-selling ban.

   Pretending to be entangled, Xia Jingxing sighed: "Close the position! But only the underlying stock will be closed, and the options will not be sold, the execution time is still early."

   Blankfein smiled, "Daren, your choice is wise, some money cannot be earned, and it is very hot to hold."

  Mak added: "I also heard that New York State is planning to investigate the alleged illegal short selling, we can't be at gunpoint.

   Of course, we are talking about illegal short selling here, which refers to those behaviors that release fake news and disrupt the market.

   Vision Capital is our major client. All trading operations are carried out by us and Goldman Sachs, and everything is compliant and legal. You can rest assured, Darren. "

   Blankfein also smiled and nodded, "Yes, Daeron, we are the most intimate partners. If you cooperate with our work, we will naturally cooperate with you."

  Xia Jingxing shrugged, "I hope so!"

   Seeing that Xia Jingxing looked a little unhappy, Blankfein and Mai Jinxiu didn't say much, they understood this very well, after all, the more one day of the order, the more profit.

   It is not an easy decision to give up such a large profit now.

   Of course, Xia Jingxing was reluctant to give up this profit, but compared with his life and the principal, he could only give up some petty profit.

  Vision Capital established a short position of up to US$14 billion in underlying stocks with the help of the TRS total return swap facility provided by the two investment banks.

   With the collapse of a large number of financial institutions such as Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Lehman, short positions have been reduced a lot.

   In the past two days, some short positions have been closed one after another, and the short positions still held are less than 10 billion US dollars, about 8 billion US dollars.

The financial stocks in the    portfolio fell by an average of 10%, which is a profit of 800 million US dollars.

   Looking at the U.S. stock market's tragic fall, it is estimated that there are still several 800 million US dollars.

   But these profits can only be temporarily given up, people, you must learn to choose.

  Compared to shorting the underlying stock at most 100% of the profit, stock indices, options and other derivatives have higher returns.

   It’s good to keep the big profits, and that’s it for shorting the underlying stock.

  Xia Jingxing thought so in his heart.

   Seeing that Xia Jingxing had been silent, Blankfein felt a little sorry for this VIP client and wanted to repair the relationship, so he opened his mouth and said, "Daren, didn't you ask me to contact Lehman's bankruptcy disposal team?

  We are already in touch! "

  Xia Jingxing pretended to look slightly, "Really? What did they say?"

   Blankfein said with a big smile: "It's not bad to talk to them, and now everyone wants to solve this mess as soon as possible, so there is a big discount in asset prices.

   Darren, you know what? The Brits at Barclays are so insidious!

They didn’t save Lehman a few days ago, but as soon as they declared bankruptcy, they jumped out again. It only took two days to negotiate a transaction plan and invested $1.75 billion to acquire Lehman Brothers’ New York headquarters and two data centers. and some other assets.

   And Lehman's business in the Asia-Pacific region, not only we are eyeing, but also the Japanese people at Nomura Securities.

   But don’t worry, if Goldman Sachs makes a move, the Japanese will just wait and go back home. "

  Xia Jingxing squeezed a smile on his face, "Really? I entrusted this matter to Goldman Sachs, just because I believe you can solve it cleanly."

   "That's natural, you can just sit and drink coffee at 40 Wall Street and wait for the final signature."

   Blankfein looked like he was packing a ticket, his whole person seemed full of confidence, just a few words made Xia Jingxing happy.

This scene fell into the eyes of Mack, which made him unable to sit still. The old man said with a full face of smiles: "Daren, AIG is in a little better situation than Lehman. It's just taken over, so it's relatively difficult to talk about.

   But don’t worry, our insurance business in Asia will definitely be won by Morgan Stanley for Vision Capital! "

   Blankfein glanced at Mai Jinhe, their eyes exchanged for a while, but neither said a word.

  Xia Jingxing has a good balance. Just now, the CEOs of the two investment banks also reached an agreement on "persuading Envision Capital to liquidate its positions". Now, the work of "M&A transaction advisor" has started again.

  To be honest, big customers like Xia Jingxing who have a lot of business and are generous with their money are always a sweet treat wherever they are placed, and the customer relationship naturally needs to be maintained.

  Although both of them knew it was impossible to monopolize the business, they couldn't help but want to try it out. Taking a step back, if they could overwhelm their old rivals, they would naturally get a little more of the cake.

   (end of this chapter)