Reborn in America, I am a legendary short seller on Wall Street.

Chapter 90 Collapse and Bottom Fishing (Seeking August recommendation tickets and monthly tickets)

Larry sat in the VIP customer seat at Reading Company's Hartford branch, experiencing for the first time the stark contrast between being on stage and off stage.

Here, Larry saw the price list he knew; it was right in front of him.

The way people were talking was something Larry had learned a year ago.

There was another boy there, busy with the same job Larry had done in his first job: copying stock quotes. He climbed up and down without stopping, copying the price of a stock he had just heard onto the quote board.

Similarly, the customers around me are still the same old group with the same old faces.

Some stared at the price chart, some stood by the price quote machine, reading out the latest stock prices aloud for the price quoter; others chatted with each other about market conditions.

The equipment was the same one Larry knew well, looking exactly the same. The atmosphere was the same one Larry was most familiar with, the one that had surrounded him ever since he made his first fortune in the stock market at Barrington.

Same quote machine, same traders, but a slightly different way of playing.

Sitting here, Larry felt that he was no longer chasing the fluctuations of the paper tape, but examining himself from a different, higher perspective.

It felt as if I were playing a third-person game, and my perspective was looking over my shoulder at me—watching how this slightly more experienced stock trader would handle a more complex and dangerous new situation.

The clock has already passed 11 o'clock.

The price quote machine was clicking incessantly, and the escalating price war and the sweltering air prompted many respectable gentlemen to hastily unbutton the top two buttons of their shirts.

One impatient customer, who was waiting in front of the quotation machine, complained that the quoting agent's tone was too slow. He stood behind the quoting agent with his hands behind his back, and whenever a new quotation tape was ejected from the quotation machine, he would shout out the name of the stock price and the latest price in his deep voice.

So far, Larry had only heard good news from him. Larry looked at the client calmly, believing that any future Colt offers from him would be the same as before.

"Colt, 29 and three-quarters, my God, today Colt is like a gargoyle struck by lightning, just kept falling, damn it!"

The customer kept complaining.

The copyist was furious. Today's hot stocks were listed at the top of the blackboard, so he had to climb the sliding wooden ladder again, erase the price of $32.5, and fill in the latest transaction price of Colt Firearms: $29.75.

Larry nodded almost imperceptibly and glanced at the clock.

If the stock price were to plummet again at this point, then the leak of Colt's financing project would not have been solely the work of Paine Weber Securities.

good good!
It's better to just expose it all at once!
By 11:35, Colt's latest price had reached $26.5, and the price had been stuck there for quite some time, indicating that the bulls and bears were locked in a stalemate.

The bulls are too afraid to touch this inexplicably falling stock anymore, while the bears are not planning to lower the price any further, because the current price is far beyond their ability to bear losses.

In fact, for Colt, a large-cap stock, and for Colt, which was surging just two days ago, today's crazy drop in stock price can be considered a complete stock price collapse.

So far, the stock price has fallen by nearly 30 points from yesterday's average trading price of 53 yuan, which is a crueler torture than being halved.

Larry currently holds two trade reports: one for 800 shares shorted at 48 and three-quarters, and the other for 400 shares traded at $37.5.

Larry's lips curled slightly as he turned to greet the front desk manager and politely inquired.
"Manager! I'd like to make one more trade before the market closes. Is that enough time?"

The front desk manager walked over to Larry, nodded and smiled, "Time shouldn't be a problem. It takes about 5 minutes from when you place the order to when it reaches the New York Stock Exchange floor. Even considering the time it takes to execute the trade on the floor, that's enough. If you're doing day trading, you won't lack counterparties!"

A reversal trade is when a short seller closes their short position before the market closes, converting it into cash. The profit is the day's trading profit. Similarly, a long seller sells their long position, and the cash received is the day's profit or loss.

The front desk manager's statement about "not lacking counterparties" stems from Larry's previous short selling of Colt stock. When he closed his position, he bought long. It's now clear to anyone with a discerning eye that there are still a large number of unfilled orders at Colt's current lowest price of $26.5. If Larry wanted to close his position, he could easily dump his orders on the person offering $26.5.

However, if Larry is a bull today and is now preparing to cut his losses, his offer will not be filled unless it is below $26.5.

This is the effect of the market amplifying both declines and rallies at the close.

Larry nodded after listening. This time, he didn't wait for the front desk manager to send a trader to help him. Instead, he went straight to the trading counter, found the trading forms with "Mr. Larry Livingston" written on them, and started filling out new trading forms.

Larry quickly finished writing the new trade order, held it in his hand, and stood in front of the quote board to continue looking at the quotes.

Larry didn't walk to the counter until 11:45 a.m., handing his trading order to the trader who had been running errands for him all day.

The trader nodded amicably to Larry, but then looked at the instructions on the trading order and seemed a little confused. He looked up at Larry and asked, "Are you sure? After closing out your 1200 short positions, do you still need to buy more stocks?"

“Yes, buy 1500 shares on the spot! Hurry up, or it will be too late,” Larry instructed simply.

Without further hesitation, the trader rushed to the telegraph room and demanded that the telegraph operator send a message...

At 11:52 a.m., Elliott, a floor trader for Reading Company at the New York Stock Exchange, once again walked toward the manufacturing and arms counter in the southwest corner of the trading floor.

Elliott first scanned the crowd at the counter, then immediately spotted the floor trader in the striped suit, who was still gesturing for a sell and shouting.
"Colt, $26.5, that's the lowest I can go! Anyone want more? I still have 4500 shares!"

Elliott glanced at his order book and walked over to make the trade. First, he closed out his short position of 1200 shares of Larry, and then immediately bought 1500 shares of Striped Suit Trader stock at a price of $26.5.

This price was the bottom line for the striped suit, although in Elliott's eyes, he had closed out his client's short position and bought 1500 shares of Colt stock.

But for the striped suit, this means someone bought 2700 shares of Colt stock in one go.

The two quickly wrote down the official transaction order. At the same time, the exchange's price clerk behind the counter had already engraved the latest transaction price onto wax paper with a stylus.

"Collt firearms, $26.5!"

This price will be relayed across the United States again via paper tape.

The trader in the striped suit had only 1800 shares of Colt stock left, and he finally felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. That hour had felt like an eternity, but he had finally sold nearly all of the 1.2 Colt shares he had held…

Just as Elliott was about to leave, a bearded man in only a shirt rushed to the counter, spread his five fingers at the man in the striped suit, and called out,

"I want 1500 shares of Colt. What's your price now?"

"26.5 USD!"

"Okay, 1500 shares, deal!!" The bearded man slapped the order slip on the chest of his striped suit, and the two quickly completed the transaction.

Elliott was a little curious. He took another look at the bearded man and noticed that the man's name tag read "Peter Pan, Floor Trader, Paine Weber Securities".

At that moment, the clock struck twelve. The New York Stock Exchange was still bustling with noise, but people were no longer as excited as before.

The traders on the floor complained, got excited, and shouted as they threw away those useless trading orders and began to calculate their gains from this trade.

The man in the striped suit looked at the 300 shares of Colt he still held, feeling quite pleased with himself. He had sold nearly 1.2 shares of Colt stock in just one hour. Although the discount was substantial, managing to sell almost all the stock before the market closed on Saturday was a remarkable achievement.

The man in the striped suit raised his fist and secretly cheered himself on!
(End of this chapter)