Reborn in America, I'm serious about making money.

In his previous life, Zhang San had traded stocks, but he lost more than he gained. He traded for over ten years and never made any money.

Over the past decade or so, his experience has gradually made him realize a fact: one cannot be greedy, nor can one set a threshold for oneself. If the stocks one chooses have no potential, one should simply lie low and accept the loss. Once one cuts the loss, one will never recover the initial investment.

By the end of June, Zhang San had finally cleared out all his stocks, and moreover, he began to close out his Hang Seng Index futures positions.

It's not that he doesn't want to make one last big profit, but the current market conditions are really dangerous.

Zhang San didn't know what things were like before the 1973 stock market crash, nor did he know what things were like before the 1982 stock market crash and the 1987 global stock market crash.

But he knew what the Hong Kong people were like before the Asian financial crisis.

He put on some makeup to make himself look older, and then openly appeared on the streets of Hong Kong. As for what he was doing there...

There is naturally a sense of historical participation; having come back once in a while, one naturally wants to integrate into the whole society.

Investors across Hong Kong are now in a frenzy. They are closely watching every market fluctuation, their emotions rising and falling with the stock prices.

Investors flocked to the stock exchange, creating a bustling and noisy scene. They stared intently at the stock charts on their screens, eagerly anticipating each rise and continuously buying more shares, hoping to reap even greater profits at the peak of the bull market.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's media outlets are filled with stock recommendations and investment strategies, with people enthusiastically discussing which stock will become the next blockbuster. In cafes, restaurants, and even on buses, investors can be heard excitedly discussing the stock market.

Hong Kong can be described as a place where everyone invests. Not only adults participate, but some students also share stock information and even discuss stock index trends, which can be quite insightful.

However, some astute investors began to notice the anomaly in the market, realizing that the bull market might be coming to an end.

They began to become more cautious, gradually reducing their stock holdings and looking for a suitable opportunity to exit. However, most people were blinded by greed, ignoring the risks and continuing to blindly follow the crowd.

However, truly intelligent people are only a minority.

The crisis arrived around the same time that Thailand gave up its "resistance." Hong Kong's economy could not exist independently of Southeast Asia.

Just as Zhang San was celebrating his successful clearance sale of those stocks that had risen significantly, July finally arrived.

On July 2, Thailand announced that it would abandon the fixed exchange rate system and adopt a floating exchange rate system. This decision was one that they were forced to make.

Since the first Thai baht crisis, Thailand has used its foreign exchange reserves to bring the exchange rate back to its original level.

Although they won, the shadow of crisis still lingers.

Those speculative funds continued to cash out in US dollars, and finally, under pressure from both inside and outside the country, Thailand compromised and abandoned the fixed exchange rate. And once this was done, things took a turn for the worse.

It's like throwing a meteorite into a calm lake.

On that day, the USD/THB exchange rate fell by 17%, causing chaos in the foreign exchange and other financial markets, and widespread devastation in the stock market.

In fact, this was a series of interconnected plans. The currency plummeted, and the stock market naturally followed suit. With the combined efforts of internal and external forces, it dealt a devastating blow to the entire market.

The 1997 financial crisis dealt a severe blow to Thailand, with various industries facing serious challenges and difficulties. The following is a description of the situation in various industries in Thailand during the financial crisis:

On the streets and alleys, shops and businesses are closing down one after another. The economic downturn has caused people's desire to consume to plummet, and the retail and service industries have been hit hard. Shopping malls are sparsely populated, customers are holding onto their wallets tightly, and merchants have had to lower prices in hopes of attracting some business.

The construction industry also came to a standstill, with many construction sites ceasing operations and cranes and construction equipment standing silently in desolate landscapes. The real estate market plummeted, leaving countless people burdened with heavy mortgages and facing the risk of losing their homes.

The financial industry is in chaos, with banks and financial institutions facing immense pressure and mountains of bad debts and non-performing assets piling up. The stock market has crashed, leaving investors anxious and their wealth evaporating in an instant.

Manufacturing factories laid off massive numbers of workers, leaving many jobless and hordes of the unemployed on the streets. The entire nation's economy plunged into recession, and people's lives were impacted like never before.

Zhang San saw on TV that Thailand was suffering from a massive short-selling attack by speculative capital, and the scene showed that Thailand was in dire straits.

He thought with a hint of malice that the reason these speculative funds chose Thailand as the trigger was to set an example for other countries and regions.

"Look, we've completely annihilated the entire country of Thailand, so you guys shouldn't even try to hold on."

This is an invisible psychological suppression, planting the idea that they cannot overcome it in their subconscious.

Some say the power of role models is boundless, and Thailand became that role model. This role model lived up to expectations, triggering a chain reaction throughout Southeast Asia; the Philippine peso, Indonesian rupiah, and Malaysian ringgit successively became targets of international speculators.

In August 1997, Malaysia abandoned its efforts to defend the ringgit. The usually strong Singapore dollar was also impacted, though not significantly. Indonesia, though the last country to be "infected," suffered the most severe consequences.

Meanwhile, the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong approached 17,000 points, a record high. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhang San immediately invested HK$2 billion and began shorting both the major and minor Hang Seng indices in the Hong Kong market.

At the same time, Yong'an Securities, which Jinqiu had put down, began borrowing shares of Lihua Group again and started short selling.

Just as the Hang Seng Index was falling from its peak, some legends began to circulate in the Hong Kong market. These legends were about Liangzai Fund and his boss.

In particular, their collaboration with speculative funds in shorting Thailand was remarkably effective.

While some were responsible for shorting the currency, others took charge of shorting the stock market and other financial derivatives. This chain of actions triggered panic in the market.

"The Liangzai Foundation is coming to Hong Kong."

"You know the Liangzai Foundation, right? They defeated Britain in 1992."

"They just defeated the Kingdom of Thailand. You know the Kingdom of Thailand, right? It has developed incredibly fast in the last ten years."

"The newspaper says they're coming to Hong Kong, and that they're planning a financial attack on the whole of Asia."

This is the power of psychological suggestion to break down someone's psychological defenses, isn't it? That's why they say confidence is more important than gold.