Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

Monday, August 1987, 10.

At dawn, an extremely dazzling red sun burst forth from the horizon of Victoria Harbour, casting the entire city of Hong Kong under a blood-red filter.

This was a day full of hope for countless stock market investors and capitalists, but for Lin Yao, it was the perfect weather for death to wield its scythe.

On the 48th floor of the Far East Financial Center, at the headquarters of Yaosheng Capital, at 8:30 a.m., the atmosphere in the main trading room was so oppressive it was almost palpable.

The air conditioning was set to the lowest setting of 18 degrees Celsius, but the foreheads of the twenty top traders were all dripping with large beads of sweat, and the air was filled with the strong smell of black coffee and the sweet aroma of Red Bull.

Lin Yao's Hitler-esque brainwashing speech last night certainly got them excited for half the night.

But as the sun rises and the market opens, the 50 billion yuan short-selling pressure hanging overhead still weighs on them like a mountain, making it hard for them to breathe.

"Gurgle..."

Someone swallowed very loudly, the sound particularly jarring in the deathly silent trading room.

"Bang!"

The door to the trading room was kicked open, and Thirteen Sister, dressed in a black suit and carrying dozens of very down-to-earth street breakfasts in each hand, rushed in.

"Damn it, what's wrong with you guys? All looking so gloomy this morning, are you constipated?"

Thirteen Sister slammed the plastic bag in her hand onto the large conference table with extreme rudeness.

"For breakfast, I had rice noodle rolls, siu mai, and sticky rice chicken. My mother specially went to that old-established shop in Kowloon Walled City to buy them. I need to eat well to have the energy to work!"

With two huge dark circles under his eyes, Chen Zheng walked over with a wry smile and took a box of rice noodle rolls. His hands were shaking so much that he could barely hold the chopsticks.

"Thirteenth Sister, you're really bold... We have 1.25 billion in margin in our account, leveraged fifty times."

"If the stock market jumps even slightly today, all of us will be queuing up to jump into Victoria Harbour. Who's going to be in the mood for rice noodle rolls then..."

"Tch, look at how pathetic you all are!"

Thirteen Sister rolled her eyes in utter contempt.

"If I, Ah Yao, said I'd smash Wall Street today, I definitely will. If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up. Why are you all worrying? Hurry up and eat!"

As they were talking, Lin Yao, dressed in extremely comfortable pure cotton loungewear, yawned and strolled in slowly.

He was also holding an enamel mug filled with goji berries and red dates, looking exactly like an old man who had prematurely entered retirement.

Good morning, boss!

Everyone stood up straight in unison.

"Good morning, please sit down. Don't make it like a funeral service."

Lin Yao strolled to the table, picked up a box of sticky rice chicken with complete ease, and walked over to Chen Zheng's main computer while munching on it.

"Old Chen, has that old geezer Arthur made a move yet?"

Chen Zheng quickly swallowed the food in his mouth, swiftly pulled up the pre-market data, and typed rapidly on the keyboard with both hands.

"Boss, during the pre-market auction, there have been extremely unusually large buy orders. Several major seats in the British system are frantically placing orders to buy up shares."

"Especially Sir Arthur's Far East British Mutual Fund, they made no secret of it, directly placing a list of 3 billion on the Hang Seng Index's heavyweight stocks to support the market."

"Furthermore, although the US market showed signs of decline at the weekend close last night, this morning, several mainstream financial newspapers in Hong Kong all published an interview with Sir Arthur on their front page, wildly touting that the Hang Seng Index would break through the 4000-point mark!"

Chen Zheng swallowed hard, his voice trembling: "Boss, this is a calculated move. He's using money to drive down the market and then coordinating with the media to create hype. When the market opens this morning, there will definitely be an extremely fierce surge."

"Once retail investors follow suit, this force will be enough to completely tear apart our 50 billion yuan short position!"

"A calculated scheme? Hah."

Lin Yao took a sip of the goji berry water and gave a disdainful sneer.

The simplest and most brutal way to squeeze out short sellers in the stock market is to force a short squeeze by driving up stock prices and forcing short sellers to liquidate their positions due to insufficient margin, commonly known as a margin call.

Once short sellers are forced to liquidate their positions, they must buy back the shares to return to the brokerage firm, which will create new buying pressure and cause the stock price to surge further.

Sir Arthur had this extremely ruthless plan in mind!

"If he wants to pee, let him pee."

Lin Yao patted Chen Zheng on the shoulder, his eyes extremely dark.

"I told him last night, however much he dares to buy, you can give me that much short selling to eat. I want him to think that we are at our last gasp and are fighting to the death."

"this……"

Chen Zheng gritted his teeth. His rationality as a trader told him that this was extremely dangerous, but his blind worship of Lin Yao made him suppress his fear.

"Understood, boss. Even if I have to bang my head against the keyboard until it smokes, I'll definitely crush his bullish momentum!"

……

Meanwhile, in Central, on the top floor of another extremely luxurious skyscraper.

At the headquarters of the Far East British Mutual Fund, Sir Arthur, dressed in an extremely imposing dark red suit, stood in front of a video wall composed of more than a dozen huge screens, holding an expensive glass of champagne in his hand, his eyes filled with a playful, cat-and-mouse expression.

Throughout the trading hall, hundreds of foreign traders dressed in white shirts stood ready.

"Jazz, the pre-market auction has ended. Our 3 billion buy orders have all been placed, successfully locking in the bottom for the futures index and major blue-chip stocks."

The white assistant reported excitedly to the leader: "We've completely stirred up market sentiment; all retail investors are frantically placing buy orders!"

"Very good!"

Sir Arthur laughed wildly and downed the champagne in his glass in one gulp.

"That reckless, mysterious short seller must be scared out of his wits by now. A billion in principal? I'm going to bankrupt him in a minute!"

Sir Arthur glanced at the clock on the wall; there were only ten seconds left until ten o'clock in the morning.

"ten!"

"Nine!"

"eight!"

Throughout Hong Kong, countless traders, stock market investors, and institutional tycoons were all watching that countdown.

"three!"

"two!"

"one!"

"when--!!!"

The opening bell of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rang with its extremely crisp sound.

"Pull it! Fire!!!"

Sir Arthur smashed the goblet in his hand to the ground with a hysterical roar like a general charging into battle.

"boom--!!!"

In the very first second after the market opened, the 10 billion yuan reserve fund of Far East Great Britain Mutual Fund, like a flood bursting its banks, crashed into the major blue-chip stocks of the Hang Seng Index with an extremely aggressive and unreasonable attitude.

CK Asset Holdings surged!

HSBC Holdings surged!

Swire Pacific shares skyrocketed!

The Hang Seng Index curve on the big screen looked like it had been strung up with a rocket, instantly pulling out an outrageously thick red bullish line! It soared straight into the sky.

3950 points!

3960 points!

3980 points!

"It's going up! The market's gone crazy!"

"A bull market, a super bull market! Breaking 4,000 points is just around the corner!"

Retail investors across Hong Kong were completely engulfed in extreme madness and greed, with countless speculative buy orders swarming in like locusts, frantically grabbing every available share of the market.

A burst of extremely arrogant cheers erupted in the trading hall of Far East Great Britain Fund.

"Jazz, the Hang Seng Index opened 1.5% higher; that short-selling account has definitely raised the alarm!"

The white assistant was so excited that his face turned bright red.

Sir Arthur spread his arms wide with obvious enjoyment: "Not enough, not enough! Keep pushing! I'm going to completely crush him on the edge of the cliff, leaving him no time to even add more margin!"

At this very moment, on the 48th floor of the Far East Financial Center.

"Alarm! Level One Alarm!"

"The Hang Seng Index has broken through 3980, and our overall account losses have reached a staggering 600 million, leaving us less than 200 million away from the margin call level!"

"Boss, the brokerage firm Peregrine is calling like crazy, demanding we deposit more margin, or they're going to initiate forced liquidation immediately!"

Throughout Yaosheng Capital's trading room, red alarm lights flashed wildly, the piercing alarms, and the extremely glaring loss figures on the screens were causing all the traders' psychological defenses to crumble.

Six hundred million! Less than three minutes after the market opened, six hundred million evaporated! Even burning money doesn't happen this fast!

If the index just goes up a little further, the remaining 400 million yuan in principal will be wiped out instantly, and these people will be completely finished.

Chen Zheng's eyes were bloodshot, and his hands gripped the edge of the table so tightly that his fingernails were almost embedded in the wood. He turned to look at Lin Yao, who was sitting on the sofa, still calmly drinking goji berry water.

"Boss, we can't hold on any longer. That old dog Arthur has gone completely mad. He's throwing money into the business without any regard for cost. Shouldn't we add more margin?"

Chen Zheng's voice was as hoarse as a broken bellows.

Lin Yao gently put down the enamel mug, looked up at the screen, and saw that the red K-line was still climbing arrogantly, as if it was about to pierce the ceiling.

But he knew that this was the limit. That false prosperity was like a balloon blown to its limit; a tiny needle could make it vanish into thin air.

Because on his system panel, the top-secret countdown representing the arrival of Black Monday had reached its final five minutes.

"Additional margin? I won't give him a single penny more!"

Lin Yao stood up, straightened his casual clothes, and his eyes flashed with an extremely terrifying killing intent. He walked to the main control panel, pushed Chen Zheng aside, and took over the keyboard himself.

"Old Chen, watch closely."

Lin Yao hovered his hands above the keyboard, like a piano master about to play a symphony of death.

"Didn't Sir Arthur think his ten billion could bankrupt us?"

"Then I'll show him what true dimensional reduction is, what the abyss of capital is. Give me the remaining 40 billion in short-selling chips..."

Lin Yao suddenly pressed the Enter key.

"Smash them all down!!!"

"BOOM!!!"

With Lin Yao's order, a massive short-selling operation worth HK$40 billion, which had been lying dormant in offshore accounts and had been kept under wraps, was violently unleashed at the same time.

If Sir Arthur's 10 billion surge was a raging flood, then Lin Yao's 40 billion leveraged short position was like an entire Himalayas crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

Extremely brutal and utterly lacking in martial ethics!

At that moment, time seemed to stand still. On the giant electronic screen of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the originally extremely arrogant and towering red bullish line was suddenly hit by this terrifying short order that could not be explained by common sense.

It felt like being brutally smashed from the top of the head to the heel with a massive hammer, and the red line vanished instantly.

Instead, there was a terrifying green spear that was extremely thick, extremely eye-catching, and plunged vertically downwards at a ninety-degree angle.

The market... has collapsed!