Melbourne.

These days, Anthony Johnston has put aside his job to help Simon deal with the operations of the Japanese financial markets.

In more than two weeks, the North American side successfully completed the cash-out of the technology stock market, and the local funds in Australia also arrived one after another, and the final fund size reached $1.57 billion. Among them, Simon's own capital is 500 million US dollars, Johnston's capital is 100 million US dollars, and the total amount of other Australian capital forces is 970 million US dollars.

Speaking of which, there are also many people in North America who want to invest in the game recently, but Simon chose to refuse this time.

More than $1.5 billion is already a big goal, leading Australian capital into the market, and Simon believes that the Johnston family will be able to turn this favor into tangible connections and benefits.

In North America, although Simon has the identity of an American, he has little connection with the local forces, and it is impossible for the two sides to establish a deep friendship just by making a lot of money with the other party.

In fact, Simon has unwittingly had the idea of building the Australian gang as his back. Of course, the Australian gang here is definitely not an Australian filmmaker in Hollywood, but a local capital force in Australia.

The pattern of plutocratic power in the United States has been fixed for many years, and Simon, a capital upstart, cannot compete with the old chaebols after all, and he has no idea of attaching himself to one side.

Therefore, if he wants to ensure that his business can continue to expand, Simon must have more leverage.

In the confrontation between capitals, the chips are still capital after all.

Australia is still a small economy, but it is a country after all.

Simon gathers the Australian capital forces together through the relationship of interests, and the chaebol power formed is definitely no less than any old consortium in the United States, and as long as it is operated properly, Simon can even obtain the dominant position of the Australian capital forces.

Now that it is to be formalized, Simon has also officially registered a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands.

Compared to onshore funds, which are required to pay taxes on time every year, the biggest advantage of offshore hedge funds is that as long as the funds are not repatriated, they do not need to pay high capital gains taxes, and fund holders can reuse the funds that should be used as taxes for capital operations.

Although not intended to operate for long, the fund always needs a name.

Simon once again sacrificed Game of Thrones, naming the hedge fund Cersei-Capital, codenamed 'Bad Woman'. And, like Daenerys Entertainment and Melisandre, Cersei Capital also has Westeros as its controlling parent company.

The entire $1.57 billion fund certainly cannot be concentrated in one fund, and Simon has set up five sub-funds controlled by Cersei Capital, each with a capital size of about $300 million.

Affected by a series of other hot events such as the Wall Street Journal article at the beginning of the month and Simon's own statement, the Japanese financial market was very active in February, and Simon quickly completed the initial layout after receiving the funds.

On the last trading day of the week ended Feb. 17, five sub-funds controlled by Cersei Capital had established long Nikkei 225 Index futures contracts with a total value of around $7 billion in two major exchanges, namely Singapore and Osaka.

Simon is well aware of his strengths, and all he can accurately judge is the macro trend of the Japanese economy.

The average number of points to open a position in these stock index futures contracts is between 32,200 and 32,700.

If Cersei Capital can maintain a long position of around $7 billion in the next few months, and the Nikkei 225 index reaches the 37,000 points that Simon plans to exit, this investment alone could bring in $1 billion in profits.

The $7 billion worth of long contracts used less than half of Cersei's capital in terms of margin, and the volume of Nikkei 225 index futures was limited after all.

For the rest of the funds, Simon began to let the trading teams of the five sub-funds operate freely. Japanese equities, bond futures, stock index options, and several other capital markets in Asia, which are also in full swing, are all targets of Cersei Capital's hunt.

Just this week, Cersei Capital's trading team successfully completed a beautiful Japanese bond futures operation.

As a series of news in early February stimulated a rapid rally in the Japanese stock market, there was speculation that the Bank of Japan would have to raise interest rates as soon as possible to curb excessive speculation in the market.

Typically, the result of a rate hike tends to lead to a fall in the price of government bonds, and hedge funds can reap strong returns if they wait for an opportunity to short.

Simon, however, remembers that the Bank of Japan did not belately announce its first interest rate hike in years until May. At that time, Japan's stock market and property market had long missed the best opportunity to prevent a market collapse through tightening.

Even though history has changed, Simon doesn't think the Japanese government will announce a rate hike three months early.

The mere speculation caused a shock in the market, and all classes in Japan, which had been immersed in the phantom of Japan's economic prosperity, did not want to break this situation as a last resort.

Coming to this conclusion, Cersei Capital's trading team has been building up positions worth a total of $6 billion in Japanese Treasury bond futures since last week, half of which are long and half short.

The margin ratio of government bonds only needs 3%, which is about 33 times the leverage.

Japanese bond futures fell at the start of the week as news of the Bank of Japan's imminent interest rate hike spread, and the trading team closed their short positions in time by Wednesday.

Then, on Thursday morning, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance publicly clarified that the Bank of Japan has no intention of raising interest rates in the near future.

Japanese government bond futures rose in response.

Simon was not greedy and asked the sub-fund trading teams to close all long positions before Friday.

Government bond futures are usually very volatile, which is why the investment leverage can exceed 30 times. However, in this week, Cersei Capital still managed to earn $36 million.

Speaking of which, this operation actually made use of some inside information, otherwise Cersei Capital would not have been able to accurately close the short position before Thursday.

The rapid rise of Japan's economy in recent years, especially the development of the real estate industry, has led to a significant increase in its demand for various mineral resources, and Australia happens to be a country rich in mining resources.

Therefore, the economies of Japan and Australia have been very closely linked over the years, as have the political and business circles, and the Johnston family has a large subsidiary in Japan, which is managed by Janet's second brother, Norman Johnston.

Japan's Ministry of Finance will issue a clarification on Thursday, from Norman Johnston, who was on a recent business trip to Tokyo.

Simon doesn't feel guilty about it, and he doesn't worry about being found out.

Many well-known hedge funds in my memory have invited a large number of politicians to join the company's board of directors, such as the current British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who joined the famous Tiger Fund in the 90s.

Probably no one would be naïve enough to think that these hedge funds invite politicians to join in order to seek investment advice.

On the other hand, the Japanese stock market was also in turmoil this week on rumors of interest rate hikes, falling 236 points at one point on Monday's opening day.

As of the close of trading on February 17, the Nikkei 225 index only edged up 76 points from 38,821 points at the close of last Friday, reaching 38,897 points. Compared to the lucrative gains made through the operation of Japanese bond futures, the long position in stock index futures held by Cersei Capital only made a book profit of $13.71 million this week.

Saturday, February 18th.

Because most of the stories of "Batman" take place at night, yesterday was still a night shooting.

This will probably continue until mid-March, with studio shoots in the last few weeks, and Simon won't have to reverse day and night by then.

Melbourne does not have the same professional studios as the major studios in Los Angeles, and the crew and props team have been using a large factory in an abandoned factory in the western suburbs of Melbourne to build film-related sets such as 'Bat Cave'.

Although it was the weekend, and during this time, an extra three hours of work were added to the workload every day to take care of Cersei's capital, but the habit had been formed, and Simon still only slept for five hours before waking up on time.

Breakfast was with Anthony Johnston.

Out of an abundance of caution, the place to dine was not at the Kendall Hotel restaurant, but at a nearby café serving breakfast.

Simon doesn't expect Cersei's operations to be kept absolutely secret, he just wants to keep the news as close as possible. However, because Simon's record in '87 was so impressive, the people who stared at him this time were also pervasive.

Anthony Johnston, who has put aside other things for a while to help Simon run Cersei Capital, has one of the main tasks of helping to improve the secrecy measures, and the team has hired a retired official from Australia's national security department as an adviser to do so.

Telephones in Simon's suite have now been converted into encrypted lines, and daily meetings with various sub-fund managers and analyst teams to discuss investment strategies are not in the hotel, but in the high-security headquarters of Johnston Holdings in the heart of Melbourne.

Even, in order to avoid revealing Cersei Capital's various investment holdings, the five sub-fund teams did not know each other very well about each other.

Anthony also told Simon privately that he had privately arranged for someone to monitor each team, and if he found that there was an internal ghost, he would eliminate it as soon as possible.

When it comes to the operation of a billion-dollar fund and the expected returns of a considerable scale, this kind of harsh caution is not excessive, and Simon is very satisfied with Anthony's arrangement, at least, regular anti-eavesdropping tests will allow him not to worry about the reappearance of bugging devices in his room.

Simon felt his scalp tingle every time he remembered the incident at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

On weekend mornings, there weren't many people in the café, Simon and Anthony sat in the corner by the window, and the two bodyguards sat nearby to block outsiders.

After a few casual chats, Anthony mentioned Cersei Capital's 'meager' gains in the stock index futures market last week, and he felt that Simon was a little too conservative.

Simon took a sip of juice, put down his glass and explained, "Tony, you've definitely seen me work on S&P 500 futures. As last time, I'm betting on a macro trend, and as long as the Japanese stock market continues to rise, our position in Nikkei 225 futures can be very stable and rich. As for government bond futures, there are too many variables, we made money last week, but we may lose all of them next week. In my opinion, many good hedge funds are driven by this urge to get more and reduce their profits. ”

Anthony Johnston has learned his goal from Simon.

Compared with the time in 87, Simon's goal for this operation can be said to be very low, he only expects that before the Japanese market turns, Cersei Capital's capital can be doubled, and no more will be extravagant. After chasing the rise, Simon is satisfied with earning some profits in the process of killing and falling to pay taxes and commissions for the trading team.

If the Japanese stock market can stick to the same direction as in the original time and space, Simon can turn his attention to the crude oil futures market after completing this operation.

Of course, Simon also knows that, because of the influence of his big butterfly, it is no longer realistic to have such expectations. However, he is still firmly locked in the peak of the Japanese market at around 38,000 points, and plans to exit from 37,000 points.

Maybe this time it will collapse early, or maybe it will unexpectedly break through 40,000 points.

But.

In any case, Simon will suppress his fear of an early collapse and his greed for a higher market, and insist on locking in his goal.

Again, knowing his true strengths, Simon will not take too much risk, and he has already planned to put as much money as possible into the Japanese stock market in the future.

Compared to the ever-changing financial derivatives market, the risk of direct stock speculation is low. There is at least half a year of bull market cycle, which is enough to ensure that Cersei Capital receives a very generous report.

Anthony Johnston had actually been warned by his father not to interfere with Simon's decision wisely, he just needed to make sure that Simon could complete the operation without distraction.

Listening to Simon's explanation, Anthony stopped at the right time and smiled: "Okay, Simon." Your birthday is coming, you have to celebrate, do you plan to arrange it yourself, or am I coming? Oh, Jenny is probably coming over in the next two days. ”

Simon was also not polite, and said: "Tony, then trouble you, I will give the crew a day off next Wednesday, and the guest list is also up to you to decide." ”

Anthony nodded and said, "In that case, let's go to the mansion on the outskirts, and I'll start preparing for the party tomorrow." ”

The two chatted like this, and after breakfast, Simon returned to the hotel.

Jennifer had as usual a stack of papers that Simon needed to review.

Leaning back in his leather chair, Simon was surprised to see Nancy Brill's proposal for Blockbuster's data analytics team and film database. He didn't expect that this woman had already put forward the concept of 'big data' so presciently before the Internet age.

If you add the Internet, it's obviously IMDB (Internet-Movie-Database). Amazon acquired IMDB for online sales of DVDs and videotapes, and Netflix used the concept of big data to establish its streaming supremacy.

Now, a little woman has come up with both concepts at once.