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

Does Zhang San want the masses? Of course he does. It's not that he doesn't have the money or can't afford it, but rather that a country wouldn't allow such a thing to happen.

Just as X grass cannot be privately owned, no matter how much money he has, it's useless because it represents the pride of a nation; therefore, he only wants to make a little money.

He was busy and fulfilled, buying as many Volkswagen shares as possible, but life can't be just about buying all the time.

"Hey boss, here's some news related to your recent European Championship."

Zhang San, who was eating attentively, looked up and listened to what his assistant had to say.

"Someone bet 10,000 euros on Greece to win and won a million. Wow, what a lucky guy," the assistant exclaimed, even though the boss won much more.

"This is truly astonishing news, a hundred times more."

Zhang San took the newspaper, glanced at it, and shook his head with a laugh. What an unconventional person! Compared to this lucky fellow, if he hadn't possessed some kind of prophetic ability, he wouldn't have traveled all the way from the mainland to here.

Zhang San bought Volkswagen shares purely for financial investment, hoping to make a large profit.

Volkswagen is expected to sell more than three million vehicles this year, making it its best-selling year to date; that shouldn't attract speculators like Zhang San.

The founding family of Volkswagen is the Porsche family, the family of sports cars; after the S2 season, Volkswagen was transferred to West Germany.

However, the Porsche family has always had its eye on Volkswagen and has always wanted to bring it back under its ownership.

However, Porsche was losing money at the time, so how could it have so much money? But things started to turn around the following year when Porsche acquired Volkswagen's shares.

Zhang San certainly won't sell his shares to Porsche at this point; he'll hold them for a long time until Porsche launches its takeover bid.

Even if the purchasing station succeeds, the maximum profit would be one or two times the initial investment. But Zhang San came here personally, so he certainly didn't come for that one or two times the initial investment.

The aforementioned "Popular Law" plays a crucial role, as it conflicts with the "Company Law".

Under the Company Law, holding 75% of the shares allows one to control a company, which conflicts with the Popular Law.

To resolve this issue, the Porsche family began lobbying Europa to have the Volkswagen Law declared invalid.

However, starting next year, the Porsche family will begin acquisitions. During the acquisition process, some people are not optimistic about the acquisition, mainly because of the Volkswagen Law. Many people are eager to cash out and take the opportunity to make a quick buck.

The acquisition was doomed to fail, and many people saw the problem: he would never be able to control Volkswagen.

Zhang San certainly wasn't after that. After the other party acquired 75%, some capital started shorting the stock. This might be related to Porsche's "David and Goliath" strategy. They felt that Porsche couldn't raise that much money and must have pledged its shares. By shorting the stock, they lowered the collateral price to the bank's mortgage rate, forcing the bank to liquidate the position, allowing them to profit and exit.

That's a valid point of view, but the other party's acquisition method was different. They exploited a loophole in the exchange and, although they also borrowed money from the bank, it wasn't as much as expected.

When someone with a keen eye studies every detail, the difference between intention and innocence is naturally significant.

The Frankfurt Stock Exchange has an option rule that allows stock option buyers to decide when to disclose their option holdings if they are willing to pay the full premium for the option at the share price.

The rules of this type of options trading naturally went unnoticed by most people and institutions, leaving many people deeply regretful.

Normal people wouldn't do this, so why did Porsche use options trading?

Because it won't be made public!

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Once the acquiring party holds a certain number of shares in the acquired party, it must make this public. However, Porsche did not want people to know about its shareholding in order to avoid some risks related to acquisition costs.

This type of options trading is also a form of betting, which involves trading with leverage; these types of options financial derivatives are high-leverage transactions where a small investment can potentially yield a large return.

Porsche pays an initial fee; if Volkswagen's stock price rises, Porsche profits; if it falls, Porsche loses the amount of the drop.

That's why nobody has ever paid attention to this law, because no normal person would do that.

But Porsche did this, using every means at its disposal to avoid making the information public.

While the entire market believed that Porsche's stake in Volkswagen remained at 42.6%, it had secretly purchased options for a further 31.5% stake in Volkswagen through a full cash payment. Combined with its publicly stated 42.6%, Porsche now controls a staggering 74.1% of Volkswagen, just shy of a 75% controlling stake.

All of this was completely unknown to the hedge fund!

That's why hedge funds started shorting Volkswagen.

Given that a 75% stake would grant Porsche control of Volkswagen, Porsche chose October 26, 2008—a Sunday when the stock market is closed—to announce its stake in Volkswagen.

When Porsche completed its acquisition of a 74.1% stake in Volkswagen and announced it to the public, the short squeeze battle officially began.

To short Volkswagen, you need to borrow stocks. And you have to repay what you borrow. At this time, only 4.6% of the shares were in circulation, Porsche held 74.1%, and the government held 20.1%.

Short selling has a lower limit, but short squeezes have no upper limit, especially given Porsche's prerequisite of acquiring a controlling stake in Volkswagen.

As a result, hedge funds that attempted to profit suffered losses of varying degrees, some quite significant. It is said that even Germany's richest man went bankrupt.

On Monday, October 27, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange experienced its largest short squeeze in history as short sellers frantically snapped up the remaining 4.6% of the outstanding shares, even at prices several times higher than when they initially shorted them, sacrificing their own lives to buy them.

Volkswagen's stock price surged 500% in just two days, soaring from €200 to €1005, and the company's total market capitalization soared to €3000 billion, surpassing ExxonMobil to become the world's most valuable company. Its success at that time was comparable to that of Apple later on.

Volkswagen is a major component of the DAX-30 index. The abnormal surge in Volkswagen's stock price has undoubtedly distorted the entire DAX-30 index. If this continues, the stock market may even face the risk of collapse.

To prevent a collapse, the only solution is to address the root cause; as the saying goes, if you can't solve the problem, then solve the person who caused it.

The stock exchange intervened, bringing together Porsche and the short sellers who had no shares to buy, and resolved the issue by having Porsche voluntarily release 5% of its shares to allow the short sellers to close their positions. Only then did trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange return to normal.

$300 billion, 20%, that's $60 billion. Every additional percentage point is $3 billion. Under such circumstances, why wouldn't Zhang San come in person?

Of course, there won't be that many then, because he'll need to form an alliance with one side, so there definitely won't be that many.