Although it is literally a negligible 4% decline, futures contracts in the forex market are completely different from other instruments, and this is a circle of mainly forex traders. In other words, it's not something that any institution or individual can get in if they want to.

In this circle, all active are funds, large multinational commercial banks, import and export foreign trade enterprises, and central banks. Every character has a lot of money, otherwise they can't support a contract with a target amount of millions of dollars.

As a simple example, the underlying amount of a Japanese yen contract traded on IMM is about 100 million yen, which is about 1 million US dollars when converted into US dollars. Unlike the bond market, the fluctuation of free money has no boundaries, which means that every percentage point of fluctuation represents a loss of tens of thousands of dollars.

In terms of margin, it is naturally not as high as the bond market, and generally speaking, the margin of each contract is maintained at least about 10%. In other words, it takes at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy and sell a contract.

With such a high threshold, the weight of the characters who can participate can be imagined.

In order to pull the Thai baht contracts in the SIMEX market to a normal level, BOT has used hundreds of millions of dollars of capital during the daytime trading hours, and even then, it is only enough to pull these contracts back a little, so you can see how fierce the short seller's offensive is. Even more serious is the spot market, which consumed more than $6 billion in BOT on this day alone, and will undoubtedly be hit even more severely.

For such a menacing shock. The Thai side will not sit idly by. Therefore, after the start of trading hours in London, the market was surprised to find that the baht contract traded on LIFFE did not fall but rose, and actually hit a new high in the past month, hitting the point of 25.99 baht to 1 US dollar.

This price has already undone the bears' previous efforts, and the market is predicting that there will be news from Thailand soon, otherwise the market will not buck the trend with a new low on the SIMEX side.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night. That is, in the early morning of May 15th. The Bank of Thailand told the media and major commercial banks by phone that Thailand will defend the baht at all costs, has banned local banks from lending short-term funds to foreign investors, and has sharply raised the offshore overnight lending rate to a high of 1,000%.

These two pieces of news greatly boosted the market's confidence in the Thai baht. Followed on the Chicago side. The Thai baht contract has also started to strengthen in xiangshang. Gradually return to the fluctuation range set by the Bank of Thailand.

……

Three hours ago, when Zhong Shi was eating at home, a familiar figure suddenly appeared on the TV in the living room. Zhong Jianjun looked up. I couldn't help but be a little strange, and asked Zhong Shidao, who was burying his head in "hard work": "Isn't this the one who came to our house two days ago?" ”

"Huh?" Zhong Shi raised his head and wiped the oil stains from his mouth, then looked at the TV, only to find that Andrew was wearing a neat suit, seriously analyzing the recent trend of the Thai baht in the ATV's financial program.

"International capital, especially hedge funds, have been coveting Thailand's monetary system for a long time, and as early as January this year, they launched an attack on the Thai baht, and the results did not turn out as they expected. This time, they did not die, and gathered a batch of funds, wanting to break the Thai baht in one fell swoop. Today's drastic changes in the market are caused by them, first by releasing false news to cause panic in the market, and then by shorting both the spot and futures markets at the same time. Since the Bank of Thailand needs to take over their selling in the spot market, and in order to hedge its foreign exchange reserves, the Bank of Thailand needs to buy US dollars in the futures market, so the Bank of Thailand has become the target of their double attack. So there is a drastic movement in the baht market today, because on this day, they also sell a lot of baht in the spot market. ”

"Where did they get all these baht? This is easy to explain, using funds or assets in domestic banks as security to borrow from banks that have operations in Thailand, and this borrowing is mainly short-term loans. Hedge funds borrow the baht to sell and then buy when the baht falls, with the exchange rate difference in the middle being the source of their profits. ”

"This kid is right!" Zhong Shi nodded, subconsciously admiring.

Zhong Jianjun was a little dissatisfied, and muttered: "What are you talking about, why can't you understand a word?" Hey, you kid can't have any business dealings with him, right? ”

Although in the past few years, they have all successively known that Zhong Shi is doing business in finance, but they don't understand finance at all, and Zhong Shi naturally didn't explain it in detail. In this generation, open source and reduce expenditure is a more recognized view of money, which is basically the kind of lifestyle where you have a penny to spend a penny. And what Zhong Shi is doing now is through leverage everywhere, and it is definitely more difficult for them to accept investment in the form of loans (and it is not a risk-free investment that is put into the bank to collect interest).

"Dad, you see that everyone is on TV, no matter how you say it, you can't be a liar, right? You can't tell TV stations to follow and deceive people, right? Zhong Shi retorted dissatisfiedly, and then explained, "This person is also a friend of mine, and his business is relatively large, so the TV station invited him to be a guest." ”

Zhong Jianjun tilted his head and thought about it, and said after a long time: "This is also true, TV stations will not deceive people after all." After that, he looked at Zhongshi, and then at Andrew, who was talking on TV, still a little uneasy.

As soon as he saw Zhong Jianjun's appearance, Zhong Shi hurriedly changed the topic: "Dad, Mom, I heard that Brother Zhong Yi recently bought a yacht, do you have time for us to go to sea together?" ”

"Yachts? Like on TV? Zhong Jianjun's eyes lit up, his tone revealed unexpected surprise, and then he said with some emotion, "Look at how capable your brother is, if you have half of him, I will be very satisfied." ”

Liu Lan put down the dishes and chopsticks, glanced at Zhong Jianjun with some displeasure, and said in a straight voice: "Let's talk about it then." Xiaoshi, your sister is about to graduate from graduate school, and I am thinking about bringing her to Hong Kong when the time comes, what is your haode way, find her a job first? ”

Unlike Zhong Jianjun, who is very arrogant, Liu Lan has long realized that her son has done a lot in his career outside. When Andrew and others came to visit that day, she secretly saw from afar that Andrew and Liao Xiaohua were respectful in front of Zhong Shi, without the slightest attitude that Zhong Shi said "friends" should have.

"It's on me." Speaking of Zhong Xiaohui, Zhong Shi also felt a little guilty, after she graduated from her bachelor's degree, Zhong Shi once wanted her to come to Hong Kong, but when Zhong Xiaohui insisted on finishing her graduate course. Two days ago, he was on the phone with Zhong Xiaohui, and he heard that she seemed to want to continue to study for a doctorate, but he hadn't made up his mind for a while. Now that she heard that she was ending her student career, Zhong Shi was naturally very happy.

Seeing that Zhong Shi happily agreed, Liu Lan stopped talking. On the contrary, Zhong Jianjun was a little strange, looked at Zhong Shi with a calm face, and then looked at Liu Lan, but gave her a sudden glare, so she had to bury her head and continue to eat.

On TV, Andrew continued: "I believe that the Thai government will not sit idly by and have reason to think that they will crack down on speculative international capital in the near future." Based on my experience and personal judgment, I believe that the Thai government will raise the interest rate significantly and prohibit local banks from issuing short-term loans to foreigners, and whether this will be done depends on the Thai side's reaction in the coming days. ”

“haode。 We, Xiexie, the senior investment director from X-Spatial Fund, have another senior analyst from the financial industry, from ......" The beautiful hostess interrupted Andrew's conversation at the right time and introduced another guest.

"Andrew is going to be famous now!" Zhong Shi swallowed a grain of rice and thought to himself.

For Andrew's appearance this time, it was naturally arranged at the behest of Zhong Shi, and the purpose was naturally to expand the influence of the Tianyu Fund. Although what he said is a well-known short-selling method in the industry, it is definitely eye-opening for ordinary investors who know nothing about hedge funds.

Just a few hours later, the Thai government took countermeasures as Andrew said, which made Andrew and Tianyu Fund a hot topic in Hong Kong's financial circles. The next day, an investor called the TV station, hoping that Andrew, the investment director, would continue to be a guest on the financial program. And soon as more predictions came true, Andrew wandered between the financial programs of various TV stations and became a celebrity for a while.

……

As soon as the market opened the next day, the Thai baht contract of SIMEX quickly rose from 26.41 baht to $1 yesterday to 25.99 baht to $1, an increase of 1.55%. However, the short side still did not give up, and the Thai baht from both markets continued to hit the baht violently for another day. Unfortunately, this time they encountered the joint intervention of the two central banks, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the BOT took action repeatedly, using a total of more than 14 billion US dollars of foreign exchange reserves, not only to stabilize the Thai baht within the prescribed fluctuation range, but also to slightly increase the exchange rate of the Thai baht in the spot market, so that the capital of international speculation suffered a double blow.

"Damn, what we expected happened!" In New York, Julian Robertson slapped the desk in front of him fiercely and said extremely unwillingly.

Now, Tiger Fund is facing not only losses from the futures market, but also high offshore lending rates. This interest rate is so high that Robertson, who has always been moody, also scolded. (To be continued......)