After closing all the Treasury futures at a price slightly above the market price, Zhong Shi had an extra 10 million pounds in his account, which he had acquired in just over an hour.

After the incident, the British regulator conducted a secret investigation into this strange transaction, but the prime minister's temporary interest rate hike was agreed to by Chancellor of the Exchequer Lamont at repeated requests, and the owner of this account was absolutely impossible to get the news of the interest rate hike in advance, so the investigation was not completed in Zuihou.

The money quickly flowed into the UK stock index futures market.

The underlying of stock index futures in the UK is the Financial Times 100 index, that is, each index is multiplied by ten pounds, which is the value of the instant contract, and if you count the leverage, it is about the same price as the current index.

Trading in FT index futures is very strong, with a trading volume of £85 billion last year. In this market, there are many participants in the market because the starting point for participation is relatively low, there is no limit on the rise and fall, and there is no limit on the number of positions.

When Zhong Shi and Andrew came to the stock index futures trading department, the stock market fell because of the sudden rise in interest rates, the long positions of stock index futures were crazy to close their orders in the market, and those long institutions with strong funds were selling long orders at a lower price to lower the average price of their positions, and the shorts who were doing the right direction were chasing after the victory and further expanding their victories, and a small part of the shorts were closing their short orders and taking profits steadily.

In short, the volume of the stock index futures market increased sharply in these few minutes, which in some ways also accelerated the decline of the index. Now the bulls are in dire need of financial support.

Bell Stone's money appeared in a fitting place.

"Buy 1,000 lots at 2310 and execute it immediately." When Zhong Shi saw the long yin line that appeared on the screen, his face was happy.

The real-time Financial Times index has fallen below 2300 points, and it is still falling, due to the premium, the value of stock index futures is a little higher than the real-time index, but it will soon fall below the psychological threshold of 2310.

When there were 1,000 long orders in the market at 2310, they were quickly overwhelmed by the surging sell orders, which was basically just a small wave, and the index was still falling.

"2309, 2,000 hands, keep buying!"

"2308, three thousand hands, increase the position!"

"2307, 3,000 hands, keep buying!"

……

As orders were issued, traders quickly typed out buying and selling instructions on the screen, and these long orders were supported at one price after another, gradually suppressing the downward momentum of the stock index.

With the entry of Zhong Shi, the people who had been watching the market with funds in their hands began to move, and they clearly found that the bulls began to exert force, and these large buy and sell orders had already spent tens of millions of pounds, and there was no stopping momentum.

These retail investors began to try to buy long orders, although the number of lots is not too large, and it does not affect the overall situation, but the market clearly smells the smell of the stock market turning.

The bears naturally understand this, and they are absolutely not willing to be suppressed by the sudden bearishness, in fact, if they stop at this time, they will make an average profit of more than 100 pounds per contract.

But these bears are not reconciled, in their opinion, this little room for decline is not enough to compensate for the losses of the last half month, since the beginning of September, the British stock market has risen by more than 100 points, and they are now only recovering the cost of opening positions at the beginning of the month.

What's more, the huge positions they hold will not be closed at all for a while and a half, because if they close their positions at this time, it will definitely cause the bulls to fight back frantically, not to mention the return of 100 pounds per contract, even half is difficult to say.

The market is like this, the shili of both sides is to trade-off, and ultimately to be in an equilibrium position.

"2300, 10,000 hands!" Seeing that the index was still slowly falling, Zhong Shi gritted his teeth and reported a number that surprised Andrew.

10,000 contracts are basically 23 million pounds, counting the funds invested before, Zhongshi's account has invested nearly 50 million pounds, and the remaining funds are only about 10 million pounds.

The 10,000-hand sell order appeared in the market, which immediately caused an uproar, and the bulls have already shown their confidence in protecting the disk very nakedly, and continue to invest a lot of money.

This price is an important psychological juncture, after the market appeared in the bell stone 10,000 hands of long orders, the bulls finally began to exert force after temporary patience, followed by bell stone have thrown long orders at the 2300 position, and finally succeeded in stabilizing the futures index at the 2300 position.

On the other side of the stock market, the index was fixed at 2291 points, and the horn of the counteroffensive was sounded.

After the bulls gained a firm position, they began to counterattack, and a succession of sell orders appeared in the market, and soon regained some of the lost ground, and the index started from 2291 all the way to Xiangshang, and in the following hour, the two sides engaged in a fierce offensive and defensive battle, and finally reached the price of 2300 at noon.

On the stock index futures side, the bears did not suppress the price of stock index futures below 2300 because their hearts were not very aligned at 2300 when they were not very careful, and the market recovered in a blink of an eye. After a slight adjustment, the bears also began to build a large number of positions, and the two sides finally saw back and forth at the 2320 level.

Now both sides are in a situation where they are weak in attack and more than enough in defense, and they are waiting for news, waiting for news that will change the market again.

The source of this news is the foreign exchange market, and it is whether the Bank of England can withstand the pressure of foreign exchange speculators selling.

What most of them don't know is that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer at this time, Lamont, already had the idea of abandoning the pound and pegging the mark.

The essence of this idea is the withdrawal of the British pound from the European exchange rate system.

In the past few hours, the Bank of England has again bought three billion pounds on the market, but it still cannot withstand the surging selling in the market. The time left for Lamont is simply not enough for him to consult with the financial and central bank governors of several other countries in the European exchange rate system.

Now Lamont is so anxious that he is even a little envious of Italy's situation last week, when the Italian lira was attacked on Friday, and they were left with two days to negotiate with several other European countries to make measures such as the lira depreciating and the Bundesbank cutting interest rates.

But for the UK, today is Wednesday, which means that the pound will be under pressure from various foreign exchange markets around the world throughout the day, and the only thing Lamont can do now is to unilaterally announce the withdrawal from the European exchange rate system to reduce the pressure from the depreciation of the pound.

The current situation is that every sell order for GBP/DM at 2.7780 that appears on the market must be followed by the Bank of England, otherwise the pound will exceed the lower limit set by the European exchange rate system.

The decision to withdraw from the European exchange rate system must be decided by the prime minister, and Lamont must re-explain to Major the crisis and urgency of the current situation as soon as possible.

Every minute of waiting now is a loss for the UK in tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions.

However, the phone from the Prime Minister's Office went unanswered, and the Prime Minister was not there. Lamont and his team of advisors searched everywhere, and Zuihou finally found the Prime Minister at the Admiralty Building, which was the Prime Minister's temporary official residence. But here, they waited for nearly fifteen minutes before Major met them.

Major didn't realize how urgent the form was, he first asked if there was room for further financial diplomacy with Germany, and then convened several ministers to discuss the current situation, the main discussion was whether Britain would offend its European partners by withdrawing from the European exchange rate system at this time, and if it really wanted to withdraw, whether other ministers would resign because of this, and other political considerations, without the slightest concern that the country was losing wealth every minute of the past.

At the same time, forex traders are still selling pounds in the market and buying marks, continuing to put pressure on the Bank of England. On Wall Street, short-selling hedge funds have been adding to their positions, knowing from the first rate hike that it is only a matter of time before the Bank of England is brought down.

The meeting between Lamont and the Prime Minister finally came to an end, and the result of the meeting was that Prime Minister Major insisted on raising interest rates instead of withdrawing from the European exchange rate system. Only this time, in order to avoid a sudden shock to the market, it was announced immediately, and it took effect the next day, raising the interest rate by 300 basis points.

Two interest rate hikes in one day, raising interest rates from 10% to 15%, which is unprecedented in the history of the UK, also shows that the situation in the foreign exchange market is indeed very critical.

To Lamont's despair, when he looked at the pound again, it was still a straight line, and there was still no reaction. He began to make phone calls to the finance ministers of other countries in the European exchange rate system, and after describing the current difficulties faced by the pound, he once again hinted at the imminent exit of the pound from the European exchange rate system.

To his criedness, Italy's finance minister, Piero Barussi, proposed by phone that he suspend the pound in exchange for more time to negotiate. What Barusi doesn't understand is that the modern finance minister simply doesn't have the authority to stop a market that runs 24 hours a day.

And the reaction of the UK to raise interest rates again has strongly stimulated foreign exchange speculators, who know very well that this is the time to "take advantage of your illness to kill you", and the British government can no longer hold on.

The sell-off in the market became even more intense and massive, and by the end of the afternoon at 3:30 p.m., the pound was barely holding on to 2.7780 under the heavy buying of the Bank of England, although the Bank of England had used up more than $20 billion in foreign exchange reserves.

Lamont is well aware that for another day like this, the Bank of England's foreign exchange reserves will not be enough, even with the support of other European central banks.

On September 16, 1992, at 7:30 p.m. London time, Lamont held a press conference at the Ministry of Finance, announcing in front of more than 200 journalists around the world that Britain had unilaterally withdrawn from the European exchange rate system and canceled today's two interest rate hikes.

This time, the prime minister finally made the right decision, only the cost of the decision was too high, worth more than two billion dollars. (First of all, thank you to the book friend General at sunset for his reward and evaluation of this book!) In addition, ask for a Sanjiang ticket...... Zuihou one day, everyone will work hard to support it...... The author has been exhausted by being busy with code words these days, and today he actually dropped one ...... Please Zuihou to support me again...... xiexie~)