Without seeing the completion of the entire acquisition, Zhong Shi boarded a plane to Chicago, USA, under the reluctant eyes of his family, where he was to complete four years of study.

Chicago is the third largest city in the United States after New York and Los Angeles, and because it is bordered by Lake Michigan to the north, the cold current from the fields of northern Canada blows directly through Lake Michigan to Chicago. Although there are many high-rise buildings in Chicago, due to the famous fires that broke out in history, the interval between the buildings in the city is very wide, and even the average width of the road is the widest in the United States, so the high-rise buildings do not block the wind, but form wind alleys, so Chicago has always had the reputation of "Windy City".

It is a multi-ethnic, multi-ethnic city, with the highest percentage of blacks at 38 percent, and security in the city has become a serious problem, especially in several well-known black neighborhoods, where guns, drugs, and gangs are the main themes. The University of Chicago, where Zhong Shi wants to study, is located in one of the black neighborhoods.

The plane landed at O'Hare International Airport, northwest of downtown, and then transferred to a limousine to the University of Chicago, 20 miles away (straight-line distance), and then after a series of tedious admissions procedures, Zuihou was assigned a double room in a dormitory.

A few days before the start of school, Zhong Shi took the opportunity to visit the three major exchanges in downtown Chicago.

The first to visit is the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), which is an active agricultural and interest rate exchange, in addition to traditional agricultural products such as corn, soybeans, and wheat, there are also long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, stock indexes, gold, silver and other futures trading.

Then there's the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which has a high volume of index futures, Eurodollar, short-term Treasury and currency futures. Its subordinate international currency market is one of the most important currency futures and options trading markets in the world.

In 2002, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was listed on the New York Stock Exchange; In '06, the two exchanges merged to form Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Ltd. to meet the challenges of Euronext (EUREX); After that, it continued to expand, and in '08 it took in the arms of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), another giant of the futures exchange.

These are all afterthoughts, and Zhong Shi Zuihou visited the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which mainly trades stock options, index options, etc. Just this year, the CBOE will launch a measure of market risk and investor panic. Named VIX Index. Its essence is the implied volatility of S&P 500 index options, which to some extent reflects investors' confidence in S&P 500 stocks, and thus speculates on the confidence of the market as a whole, which is a particularly key confidence indicator.

Options. Strictly speaking, it's a choice. In terms of type. It can be divided into European-style options and American-style options. European-style options are that buyers and sellers can buy or sell a certain amount of the underlying at an agreed price at a specified point in time, and the execution time is the haode specified in the contract, so its price can be calculated through the Blacks Coles option (BS model) price model. On the other hand, American options can be exercised arbitrarily at a certain point in time, so the price of such options cannot be calculated.

Since American-style options give more power to the buyer, they are also more expensive than European-style options in terms of fees.

In addition to the products listed on these exchanges, there are also more varieties and more complex financial derivatives in the OTC market. Since these derivatives are not regulated by the exchange, they are far larger than similar products on the exchange, both in terms of transaction size and underlying amount.

After visiting the three major exchanges, Zhong Shi returned to the University of Chicago, and then lived a life like an "otaku", basically spending most of his time in the school except for the acquisition of the Hong Kong side by telephone remote control.

Zhong Shi's chosen majors are statistics and economics, and the semester of American universities is generally set into four quarters, of which about three quarters are one academic year, and the undergraduate program is generally four years, but you can choose to study in other quarters, as long as the credits are full, you can graduate.

Zhong Shi has long admired the University of Chicago, the birthplace of the money school, and the California Institute of Technology, where he attended in his previous life, was an out-and-out research university, where most of the graduates went to places like NASA or a national laboratory, and fewer changed careers, and even fewer were active on Wall Street.

However, schools like Chiba University have similar guidance departments, and even have special guidance for racial minorities to enter the investment industry, because the United States is a country that is very strict in terms of racial discrimination, and even the major investment banks on Wall Street, which are dominated by white elites, must add employees of other colors, otherwise they are very likely to be accused of racial discrimination.

And if you enter a Wall Street institution, you will likely become the kind of person who earns more than most people, and in this case, you will be able to give back more money donated to the school.

Zhong Shi has no plans to enter other institutions, in fact, when he reaches the age of a legal person next year, he will set up a fund of his own and appear in front of the world with a righteous and bright attitude.

Generally speaking, Hong Kong students have received a British-style education since childhood, and most of the students in Hong Kong apply to British universities, but in recent years, there have been many outstanding Hong Kong students studying in American universities, after all, the universities here are the most haode on Shijie.

Funnily enough, the student, Li Weigang, was an out-and-out pro-British faction, and he showed disdain when Zhong Shi said the first sentence, and in this era, Hong Kong natives basically had an inexplicable sense of superiority over people from the mainland, and Zhong Shi spoke Mandarin out of place.

But he didn't have long to do before he was broken by a sudden phone call.

"Hey, Mr. Chung? I'm Linda, an employee of HSBC Private Banking North America, so you can always contact me if you need anything in Chicago! A woman's voice with a broken Mandarin accent rang out over the microphone.

Her Mandarin was spoken in an extremely strange way, and her voice was frustrated. One word at a time, as if reading to the mark, and as if it was just learning Chinese.

The attention of Li Weigang, who was pretending to read a book, was immediately attracted to him, he was from Hong Kong, but he knew the huge influence of HSBC.

"Uh......" Zhong Shi resisted the urge to laugh and said in English instead, "It's strange that you still don't say Chinese. In that case, you can help me find an apartment in the city center and find me a bulletproof car. Be low-key on the outside. ”

Downtown Chicago is at the mouth of the Chicago River. It is the Loop district, with countless high-rise buildings, the famous Hills Building, the three major exchanges are located in that place, and naturally the housing prices in such places are not cheap.

The University of Chicago is also close to Lake Michigan. But it's about ten kilometers from the city center. And it's in the black zone. After two black mayors in the '80s, policing became a big problem for the whole of Chicago, so Bell Rock couldn't wait to move out of here.

Li Weigang, who pricked up his ears and eavesdropped on the sidelines, was dumbfounded. He almost screamed out out of faux puff, he never imagined that the young man in front of him, who had only met for a short time, was a hidden character, who was going to buy an apartment in the center of the city as soon as he came to Chicago. He remembered the muttering he had made earlier, and couldn't help but secretly regret it in his heart.

Chicago is a bit of a strange place, with Lake Michigan plunging into Illinois like a wedge, and Chicago being an urban agglomeration built around the west side of Lake Michigan, with a large area of the coastline north from the mouth of the Chicago River to the north being a wealthy area.

HSBC Private Bank's work efficiency was very fast, and after half an hour, the phone came back again: "Mr. Zhong, I know that there is an apartment that meets your requirements very well, and the owner just wants to make a move, if you have no opinion, I can help you contact the owner first, but this place is a little far away from Zhida." The female voice on the phone paused, and then continued: "And it is in the absolute prime location of the city, and the price may be relatively high." ”

This is how to do business, everything must be said ugly first, but Zhong Shi doesn't care about this money, if he wants to say that his current net worth is enough to buy the Hills Building. He said nonchalantly: "The price is not a problem, you can contact first, and when I have time, I will go and see for myself, and if there is no problem, I will prepare the contract." However, the car matter must be hurried, and there is also the problem of driver's license. ”

Soon, in the afternoon, HSBC's shuttle bus drove to Chicago's South Side to pick up Zhongshi, who had not yet visited the entire Chicago campus.

This is a 70-story apartment building located at the mouth of the Chicago River, the name of the building is LakePoint Tower, located in the famous Chicago attraction Navy Wharf, the building is covered in all black, its three-wing arc building is very modern, and it is the tallest apartment building in Shijie after its completion in 68. Because of its location on the shores of Lake Michigan, it immediately became one of Chicago's most famous, upscale apartment buildings.

"This apartment is located on the top floor, as soon as you open the window you can see the Shears Building, and you can even see other states when the weather is haode, the room is 300 square meters in size, and the decoration is Baroque. Of course, you can also redecorate. If I hadn't been in a hurry to move, I wouldn't have sold at such a low price. ”

After a white man in his 30s took Zhong Shi and the others to look inside and out, Zuihou quoted a price of $750,000.

Zhong Shi was naturally very satisfied, and he nodded: "Check or cash?" ”

A stunned expression immediately appeared on the white man's face, he first didn't expect that this young man didn't even have a counteroffer, so he agreed to it, and then said "cash", which made him feel even more at a loss. You know, due to the perfection of the credit system in the United States, basically not many people will use cash, especially when buying and selling large amounts. (To be continued......)

PS: Xiexie book friend ttjc voted, really thank you very much for still supporting this book. In fact, the author is really sorry for everyone during this time, but there is nothing to do, and being able to understand has made the author grateful.