The last month of 03 is destined to be extraordinary. Look at 1 gross 2 lines 3 Chinese net

At the beginning of the month, the Chinese soybean procurement team arrived in Chicago to negotiate soybean procurement with the U.S. side.

Winter in Chicago is, in the words of a local weather forecaster, "bloody cold." But for both sides of the negotiations, this is nothing. The scorching negotiations made both sides feel hot inside, and in this round of confrontation, all parties paid attention.

U.S. soybean farmers want to sign a big purchase order, Chinese soybean processors want to import soybeans at a better price, domestic soybean farmers don't want to import too many soybeans to squeeze the domestic market, and soybean farmers in other producing countries don't want the U.S. to get too many purchase contracts to occupy the Chinese market......

And Jiagu is also watching this round of negotiations.

Although Jiagu is not directly involved in the soybean industry in China for the time being, its hedge fund in the United States is involved in soybean futures trading.

Futures trading is the buying and selling of futures contracts.

A futures contract is a standardized contract formulated by an exchange that stipulates the delivery of a certain quantity and quality of physical commodities or financial products at a specific time and place in the future.

To put it simply, futures are all about buying and selling an expectation, buying and selling future ups and downs.

The most basic operation of futures trading is "long" and "short".

The "assassin" hedge fund chose to "long" soybean futures this time, that is, in anticipation of the rise in soybean prices, buy soybean futures contracts, and sell and close positions for profit after the price rises.

Of course, futures trading will be very complicated in practice, involving a variety of trading strategies such as upper limit arbitrage, lower limit arbitrage, vertical arbitrage, etc., and non-professionals cannot play with it.

The Chicago Board of Trade is mainly based on the listed soybean, wheat, corn and other agricultural product futures varieties, which are the most authoritative futures varieties in the world, and the prices of agricultural products revealed by them are also the most authoritative futures prices. See. Wool, Chinese net

Therefore, the Sino-US soybean trade negotiations are taking place here.

Qi Zheng and the "Assassin" hedge fund team chose to closely follow the negotiation process at the fund's headquarters in New York.

Qi Zheng went to the United States half a month earlier than the Chinese soybean sourcing team, and after spending her birthday with Tian Yuwei, his girlfriend was going to follow her mentor to Europe to participate in a design project, and Qi Zheng was joining Jiang Ping and Su Fang, who were also in New York.

The "Assassin" hedge fund managed by Jiang Ping lost nearly $10 million in the early days, but then quickly adjusted, and during the outbreak of the Iraq war, it not only made up for the initial losses but also earned nearly $20 million through arbitrage trading in crude oil futures.

In the second half of the year, the fund focused its attention on the soybean futures market. Combined with Qi Zheng's trend analysis, before the USDA released its soybean production forecast, "long" soybean futures bought a total of 8,000 CBOT soybean futures contracts at an average price of 500 cents bushel (the contract unit is 5,000 bushels per lot).

After the U.S. Department of Agriculture lowered its U.S. soybean production forecast, soybean prices soared from 500 cent-bushels in August to more than 700-cent-bushels in December, and hedge funds made large profits.

However, although hedge funds have made a lot of profits, Qi Zheng and Jiang Ping are not necessarily very happy.

Very simply, if the unit of measurement is converted and calculated according to the exchange rate, it is equivalent to rising from 1,900 yuan tons to 2,661 yuan tons, and according to the amount of soybeans to be purchased in China of 2.5 million tons, how much more will it cost!

Although hedge funds have made money, the 8,000 contract contracts are only a little more than a million tons, and no matter how you count them, they will suffer losses in China.

And that's not the end of it.

"During this period, we have hired a professional survey company to obtain a lot of first-hand soybean origin data, and according to the fund's internal analysis, if there is no major change, it is unlikely that the U.S. soybean production will be significantly reduced next year. Su Fang handed the analysis report to Qi Zheng and introduced.

Qi Zheng flipped through the information, quickly skimmed it, and then smiled bitterly.

"If it's elaborate, all I can say is that it's too deliberate. ”

Before the domestic soybean purchasing group bought soybeans, the US Department of Agriculture released a "bullish" message, which led to an increase in the price of CBOT soybeans, and domestic soybeans imported from the United States had to maintain "high prices."

However, according to the fund's internal analysis, once the soybean harvest next year, the market will suddenly change - the price of soybeans will definitely dive.

Jiang Ping analyzed, "To be honest, this is not a conspiracy, but the routine definitely exists." It's a pity that there is too little risk awareness and futures trading experience in China, and now it seems that this loss is a certainty. ”

Qi Zheng and Su Fang both nodded silently.

......

At this time, the Chinese soybean purchasing group did not know that they were taking the initiative to get into the "rope lasso" set by the Americans.

Especially Li Guangfu, seeing that the negotiations were about to be reached, his eyes showed excitement.

Founded in 90 years, his Beinong Bean Group has grown at a rate of 29 per year, and this year's crushing scale has reached 3.5 million tons, with sales revenue of more than 5 billion yuan. His ambition is to become the flagship of China's oil industry, with the next target of an annual crush of 5 million tonnes.

For this reason, the purchase order thrown out by Li Guangfu this time was as high as 800,000 tons, surpassing the Guoliang Group, a big man in the domestic grain and oil import and export circles, and becoming the protagonist of the Chinese delegation without any suspense.

The previous negotiations were mainly deadlocked on price, because the Americans insisted on using the futures price of the Chicago Board of Trade as the basis for pricing, and the Chinese side did not know that this would cause losses, so it refused to agree easily.

However, the business representatives led by Li Guangfu muttered even more that the price of soybean futures will rise or fall next?

You know, even if the goods are shipped immediately after signing the contract, it will take two months to arrive at the eastern port of China at the earliest.

That's where the stakes lie. Although many experts say that the current price is rare in years, it has basically been reached. But who knows? Li Guangfu knows that there are no absolutes in business, and the words of experts cannot be trusted 100 percent.

After two more days of talks, Li Guangfu and his wife could not hold back, and the negotiations were basically reached in accordance with the wishes of the US side, and the signing ceremony was held in the board room of the Chicago Board of Trade.

At the signing site, there was an unpopular After signing the purchase contract for 2.5 million tons of soybeans, the two sides actually signed a contract of intent for 2.5 million tons!

So much so that the American Soybean Association excitedly pointed out that if the second contract can be fulfilled, China's purchases this year will reach 9 million tons, accounting for nearly 50% of imports.

The news spread quickly throughout the trading floor, and the audience was shocked, and all the traders stopped selling and let out thunderous cheers.

Li Guangfu and other representatives of Chinese enterprises were also full of ambition for a while.

The news reached New York as soon as possible, and when Qi Zheng and Jiang Ping learned about it, they looked at each other......