From legendary short seller to god of American capital

Chapter 375 The Standoff Where He Had the Upper Hand: The Big Boss Behind the Scenes Finally Made His Move

"You gambler. Trying to extort money from me on my own turf? You've got some nerve."

Taylor's voice wasn't loud, but it instantly silenced the entire hall. Those who had been eyeing the stock prices on the ticker board sensed danger and shrank back.

Taylor waved impatiently at the customers, and the manager hurriedly ran over and shooed them all away from the trading floor. After the customers had all left in a hurry, Taylor's men took a few more steps forward and subtly surrounded the three of them.

Larry seemed oblivious to the almost stagnant air. He even casually straightened his cuffs and said with a smile, "Mr. Taylor, you misunderstand. This isn't extortion; it's the rule. Just like you set the rules in the market, I'm following the rules—if your subordinates delay payment, they have to pay interest at 5% per day, according to the rules. No cheating, young or old."

"Fuck your rules!" the red-haired man couldn't help but curse, making a move to step forward.

Almost simultaneously with his movement, Rattlesnake Cole, standing to Larry's side and behind, glided forward like a ghost. Everyone only saw a blur before their eyes, unable to discern the exact action. The red-haired man groaned, clutching his wrist and staggering backward.

Taylor frowned and looked over, only to see that his henchman Dawson's face had turned deathly pale. His wrist was bent at an unnatural angle, indicating that it was probably broken.

Cole remained silent, but his eyes swept over the seven or eight thugs behind Taylor like a venomous snake, full of warning.

It happened with lightning speed. A commotion arose among Taylor's thugs, some instinctively reaching into their coats—

Just then, a sharp gunshot rang out, "Bang!" The chain of the chandelier snapped, and the lampshade swayed violently.

Everyone looked on in horror to see Matthew holding a strangely shaped pistol with wisps of smoke rising from its muzzle.

Matthew's face remained calm, but his hand holding the gun was as steady as a rock. His eyes swept lightly over Taylor and his companions, and he said calmly, "Relax, gentlemen. Don't let me sense your tension. If you're tense, I'll be too—"

Taylor couldn't hide the shock in his eyes. He'd seen his share of the world, but the two men behind the gambling tycoon—one breaking his own henchman's wrist with his fists, the other pulling out a pistol and snapping the chandelier chain—

He hadn't seen the two people's actions clearly at all.

If that person had been pointing a gun at me, I probably would have been dead already.

Taylor's face hardened slightly, but he still put on a stern expression and said, "Do you want to start a fight? Fine! Let's see who can get out of this room today—there are nine of us here!"

The manager quickly glanced around the lobby, realized he was among the nine people, and hurriedly raised his hand, indicating that their affairs were none of his concern.

Just as the conflict was about to escalate into bloodshed, Larry clapped his hands lightly. "Alright, Mr. Taylor! Let's put away this charade of sending our men to their deaths. Actually, I'm not here today mainly to demand the principal and interest of that $1—although it should have been mine in the first place."

Before Larry could finish speaking, Matthew swiftly pulled another pistol from his coat and pointed it at one of Taylor's men to the side. The man had originally intended to draw his gun while Ali was speaking.

But before he could draw his gun, a pistol was pointed at his head again.

Everyone was taken aback by Matthew's lightning-fast reflexes; both hands froze in mid-air, fearing he might pull the trigger again.

Taylor narrowed his eyes and raised his hand to signal his eager subordinates to calm down. "Weren't you here for me? You even ambushed me back in St. Louis—"

Larry casually brushed a few strands of golden hair from his forehead and said calmly, "None of that matters. You're open for business, and I'm here as a customer to support you—that's standard procedure."

But I'm here today to tell you something: don't get involved in the railway workers' strike—a very important person asked me to tell you that this is not something you can handle.

"Who are you? Aren't you just a gambling swindler? And who do you know?" Taylor didn't believe it at all.

"If you don't believe me—whatever, I bet you can't escape Chicago without paying a heavy price," Larry said with absolute certainty.

Taylor frowned. The two had no prior connection, and he had come to Chicago specifically to see "High Roller Boy" make money at the betting shops.

But this person immediately revealed that his real reason for coming to Chicago was to help with the workers' strike—which was very strange.

How could he know my itinerary? Aside from the directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad and a few of his closest confidants, they all knew about it and were currently around him.

After thinking for a long time without any clue, Taylor simply said, "I don't understand what you're saying—but I need to emphasize one thing to you: stay far away from here from now on, and don't trade here!"

"If I can't, then no one else can." Larry smiled. "That approach won't work here."

This is not St. Louis.

"Then this feud between us is never over!" Taylor emphasized.

"You must have more than one betting company, right?" Larry's implication was clear: you can't just not do business, can you? If you do business, you'd better be someone I'm targeting!

Taylor blushed, unsure of what to say.

"How about this? Let's compromise," Larry suddenly said, his face relaxed. "You give me my money, and I promise I'll never come to this branch again, okay?"

"What do you want?!" Taylor roared.

"I told you, I'm here to deliver a message. Believe it or not, it's up to you." Larry smiled, walked towards the manager, and held out his hand. "Give me the money first!"

The manager quickly looked at Taylor, but the latter made no comment, and he swallowed his argument.

The manager turned back to the counter, opened the inner safe, and carefully took out a stack of banknotes and a few glittering coins, placing them together with the others.

"You can check the tally: here are eight $1000 Hamilton notes, some dollars, plus 20 Double Eagle gold coins. We're even!"

Larry reached out, his fingers tracing the cold, crisp banknotes and heavy gold coins, a smile returning to his face.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Manager—I hope your bank's cash flow remains this healthy!"

Turning to Taylor, Larry said, "Mr. Taylor, I have delivered my message. Believe it or not."

Larry turned and gestured to Matthew and Cole. The three of them calmly retreated towards the door. Once they were on the street, Larry smiled and waved to Taylor, and the three of them walked away, disappearing around the corner in no time.

Taylor's henchmen looked at their boss.

Taylor's face was ashen, his hands clenched tightly, but he ultimately did not give the order to act.

Larry's words drew him into deeper thought, and unable to figure out just how powerful the other party's background was, he could only watch helplessly as the three of them left.

The three walked out of Canal Street, and Tiger Brady emerged from his hiding place.

"Keep an eye on us to see if we're being followed, and also, see where they end up—" Larry quietly instructed.

Brady nodded secretly, then stepped back to the other side of the street.

Larry walked straight toward the South Wharf, with Matthew and Cole following behind him.

Once he was sure no one was following, Matthew lowered his voice and asked, "I still don't understand. Did you really go to Taylor's betting shop just to delay his campaign against the workers? Then why—why did you do it so ostentatiously? Not only did you make such a huge profit, but you also openly provoked him—this isn't like you. It's more like you're declaring war on him."

Larry chuckled, putting his hand on Larry's shoulder, and said, "Actually, at first I really just wanted to cause him some trouble, but when I found out I wouldn't get the bulk of my money until Monday—I changed my mind!"

After telling the joke, Larry continued sincerely, "Have you noticed that he is a perfect destabilizing factor?"

After leaving Mr. Altgillder's place, I thought to myself—someone has to take responsibility for this matter concerning Chicago and the Northern Pacific Railroad, right?

"You mean—him?!" Matthew was a little surprised. "I admit my motives weren't noble, but I did point him in the right direction. It's up to him to choose!" Larry nodded and said with a smile, "Hopefully he'll listen to me and leave here quickly. Otherwise, if this continues, those big shots will have no choice but to make him take the blame—it's all within his control."

Matthew carefully recalled their encounter with the Chicago Democratic bigwig, then shook his head helplessly and sighed, "Some people think they can rule the world—but in reality, they're just pawns. He doesn't even know he's a pawn. You're right, Larry, it all depends on his choices."

On Monday afternoon, the news that Cargill, which owns Chicago’s largest grain warehouse and is one of the largest grain traders in the Midwest, was preparing to release all of its grain reserves shocked the entire city of Chicago.

No one knows how much grain Cargill has stockpiled, or when they plan to sell it—but the market is about to face an unprecedented massive clearing of wheat spot prices, that's all there is to it.

Previously, traders' sentiment was dominated by the railway workers' strike, and the temporary reconciliation between the striking workers and capitalists was seen as positive news.

But now that news of a massive sell-off in the spot market has come out, people naturally think of the workers' settlement with the Northern Pacific Railroad—which is naturally a negative factor!

This means that the Northern Pacific Railroad is about to resume construction! Previously, the railway workers' strike prevented the harvesting of grain from various places, but now?

People immediately realized that grain collected from all over the Midwest would converge in Chicago, thus driving down wheat prices there.

Furthermore, people realized that Europe doesn't seem to need much American food for the time being! This short-term upward trend has already materialized! The spot price was already much lower than the futures price—

The same news, which was previously considered bullish, was reversed and fell sharply simply because the consensus was that prices might fall.

Almost overnight, everyone realized that maintaining futures prices at such high levels was simply a sin.

Meanwhile, Chicago newspapers began widely reporting rumors that Cargill might be insolvent because they were selling off all their wheat stocks.

This has caused further panic in the market.

Larry instructed that Cargill had a designated "public relations ambassador" to face the media this time, and this ambassador would only tell reporters, "No comment!"

From the evening paper that day to the morning paper the next day. From internal market communications to whispered rumors—

There is a consensus that wheat will experience a correction in value.

But none of them knew that the wheat that was supposed to be sold had already been dumped on the market by Larry on Monday morning!

In other words, Larry has already locked in the selling price of the wheat, and any fluctuations in the spot market are no longer relevant to Cargill.

When the time comes, whoever wants to take delivery, just throw the wheat at them!

Larry deliberately kept it a secret, so no one knew the news. The value of inventory that might be sold was far greater than the news that it had already been sold.

People always trade based on expectations, not reality.

Now, the news that "Cargill is going to sell wheat" has fueled expectations of a short-selling market.

Starting early Tuesday morning, wheat futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange experienced a sharp and persistent decline.

When wheat prices fell below the $1 mark, Larry issued new trading orders, dumping all the cash and unrealized profits from his three accounts into the market to continue shorting.

The market is like a kite with a broken string, falling continuously.

At the same time, Baruch, the front desk manager of Reading in New York, sat in a VIP room that nominally belonged to Larry but was actually his own, looking at the newly printed transaction statement and frowning deeply.

Recently, Larry's futures account at Lehman Brothers, which he manages, has consistently been hit with precise stop-loss orders.

Baruch's stop-loss order was set to automatically sell when the price fell 0.5% below the market price. However, even in a perfectly calm market, a large order might happen to trigger his stop-loss order, forcing him to exit at a loss.

What's even stranger is that the price rebounded after two or three minutes, as if the market was just waiting for his order to test the bottom.

Once is a coincidence, but three times in a row is a pattern.

It's as if someone saw his stop-loss order and precisely triggered it with a small amount of capital, directly absorbing his sell orders and then pulling them back up.

It was a pinpoint sniper kill; that's correct.

Baruch looked at the transaction settlement statement and then at the brokerage's price list, secretly making up his mind, "Today I'm going to test whether there's a problem. Is someone just looking at my stop-loss order to place their own?" Baruch nodded to himself.

Next, through a direct telegraph line, Baruch sent a price limit order to Lehman Brothers that was virtually impossible to fulfill.

He placed a buy order for two lots of oats at $0.90 each when oats prices fell below $1. Shortly after, Lehman Brothers sent a telegram stating that his two lots of oats had been filled and asking if he wanted to place a stop-loss order later.

Baruch set a price of 0.895 yuan and looked at the futures quote board.

As it turned out, the price of oats didn't move at all, and a little while later a trader came over to him and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Baruch. Your futures stop-loss order has been executed!"

Baruch frowned deeply, his fingertips tapping the table. He knew he was being watched. The oatmeal price was clearly stable at $0.98, but his ridiculously low $0.9 limit order had been marked as filled, as if it had been gnawed by a ghost.

Shortly afterward, a stop-loss order was triggered at that position.

What does this prove?

My commission has long been targeted, and some floor traders are taking advantage of loopholes in the rules, such as two people privately trading even a single lot at an extremely low price.

This price won't actually affect market trends; it's just a private transaction. However, the transaction price will be recorded, and it will also trigger your stop-loss order instantly.

This was a precise sniper shot, aimed right at me!

To be precise, it was aimed at Mr. Larry Livingston's account!

The opponent not only had money, but also used various means to discover his trading process and was well-versed in the trading rules and all the shady aspects. He was using legal and compliant rules to hunt down his account.

What a formidable opponent!

What's worth exploring is the other party's purpose? If a novice trader is repeatedly stopped out "just in time," they are very likely to go all in—either by not setting stop-loss orders or by making heavy trades out of spite.

This makes it easy to bet everything and end up ruined. Because futures trading is leveraged, the worst thing you can do is overleverage.

After investing heavily, it's like entrusting your life to someone else to decide your fate.

Could he be the "mastermind" that Mr. Livingston had already set up for him to "fish"?

Baruch's face turned cold and serious. He drafted a telegram and sent it to Goldman Sachs. Livingston had told him before he left that if he needed to contact him, Goldman Sachs should relay the message.

Baruch's telegram was simple: I suspect that a counterparty has locked my account and intends to deplete my funds when I placed my futures order.

We suggest you call back immediately to indicate how to handle the situation.

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