Chapter 194 Harvest

Hong Kong, January 20, 1998, the Great Cold.

Standing on the 22nd floor of a high-end residential building in Wanchai, Feng Yiping finally overlooked the Golden Bauhinia Square not far away. On the night of June 30 last year, Feng Yiping was also here. At midnight, the mighty PLA soldiers raised the five-star red flag there.

With the rise of the five-star red flag, on the other side, Charles, who may be the second worst in history since Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, may not be able to ascend to the throne in his lifetime, as the last governor of Hong Kong, is the one who will pop up from time to time in the future Accompanied by the disgusting Patten who barked a few times, he left sadly.

Carrying a backpack and pushing the suitcase, Feng Yiping once again took a look at this "thousand-square-foot mansion" that has been rented for nearly a year, and then locked the door and went downstairs.

He also really wants to buy a set so that his sister, who is still a bit worried about not being a Shanghai native, can directly become a Hong Kong resident. However, although the housing prices in Hong Kong are already falling, there are still too many bubbles. Buy at this time , I have trouble with myself and money.

From 1994 to last year, in less than four years, the housing prices in Hong Kong rose by nearly 70%. Many years later, a large number of mainland residents bought properties in Hong Kong, and the housing prices will be brought back to the current level. Later, those clamoring It is the mainland residents who have driven up housing prices in Hong Kong. They should really look back at the current situation.

All kinds of people on the road are still in a hurry, but they can vaguely see the feeling of survival after the catastrophe on their faces. Also, the past year has been difficult for these countries in the Asian region.

Ten years is like a reincarnation of fate. Prior to this, Southeast Asian countries have experienced rapid growth for ten consecutive years. Some countries and regions have been crowned as the Four Asian Tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong) and the Four Asian Tigers. (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia) reputation.

Just take Thailand as an example. A peasant woman or even a street hawker you meet in the outskirts of Bangkok may be a member of the stock army. At that time, they themselves felt that money was too easy to come by, so they were keen on beach houses. Luxury goods, Japanese appliances.

Like the rich Americans, they send their children to private schools, travel to Europe every year, and even small business owners start to buy Mercedes-Benz.

However, everything so prosperous has been in turmoil since the beginning of 1997.

On the second day after Hong Kong's return, the situation finally became clear. After several resistances, the Thai government had to announce the abandonment of the 13-year-long exchange rate system of the Thai baht pegged to the US dollar, and was forced to announce the implementation of a floating exchange rate system.

Subsequently, the governments and central banks of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and other countries, after a few symbolic and weak resistances, gave up their actions to defend their currencies. Run amok for a while.

In November, the crisis spread to South Korea, and later, the Japanese financial industry, which has a large investment in South Korea, was drawn into it, causing a series of Japanese banks and securities companies to go bankrupt, and the Southeast Asian financial turmoil officially evolved into the Asian financial crisis.

In this game of robbing and robbing international hot money, Feng Yiping is like an inconspicuous little shrimp, following them in various short positions, from Thai baht to Philippine peso, Malaysian ringgit, Singapore dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Korean won , In October, he also shorted US stocks and Hong Kong stocks. Last month, he concentrated all his funds and used ten times leverage to short Korean won once. That was also the time he made the most profit in a single transaction.

Although at the beginning, with the resistance of the governments of various countries, he also lost some, but the final result is very considerable. As his profits increased, he was not eligible to apply for financing leverage at the beginning, and then it was 5 times 10 times With the leverage, the dollar assets in his UBS account have also increased steadily, and now it has reached eight figures. Although it still starts with 1, he is already very satisfied.

In the past, he was just an ordinary low-end customer of UBS. These days, senior staff of UBS have contacted him to sell various financial products to him, but he was unmoved by all, and just bought some Apple stocks. Although Jobs returned last year, Apple's stock price is still hovering at the bottom.

Someone wins, and of course someone loses.

In Thailand, people who felt that it was too easy to make money a few days ago have lost their jobs first, and then lost their cars. The new house has to be sold before the paint is dry, and their children are transferred to public schools. Romantic and luxurious The European tour was cancelled.

Many students in private universities can't adapt to this change. In order to maintain their dignity, even better clothes and shoes can only be rented now.

Although the scenery is still so beautiful and the high-rise buildings are still so row upon row, but there is a bottomless gap between the once rich and the current desolation.

In Indonesia, even the children of President Suharto, who was later famous for corruption and topped the World Bank's "Corruption Rich List", had to sell their companies to avoid losing money.

In Malaysia, the top ten richest people have lost tens of billions of dollars in the stock market alone.

Of course, Feng Yiping, who has made a little money, has no guilt at all. Soros also said, "In terms of financial operations, it is not moral or immoral. This is just an operation."

In addition, as he said, even without this hype, what should come will still come.

Also, these Southeast Asian countries are immersed in a high-growth atmosphere, and their currencies are seriously overvalued, but they have not adopted control measures like China. The foreign exchange reserves are insufficient, and the stock and foreign exchange markets are not controlled. The currency can be freely converted. After emptying its foreign exchange reserves, they can only watch the hungry wolves making waves in the domestic foreign exchange market and stock market.

Even when our country has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, it still refuses to relax controls. There must be considerations in this regard. After all, no matter how large a country’s foreign exchange reserves are, it still cannot be more than the hot money that can be collected in the international market.

Moreover, there is the Soviet Union in front of it, which can be said to be an example of being dragged down by the United States and other Western countries with economic means. It is normal to have stricter financial controls.

On the bus to the airport, I heard the two people in the front row say with lingering fear, "It's finally over! Fortunately, although some meat has been cut in the stock market, let alone the ones I bought before, the building I invested in last year , and the current income is not bad.”

Feng Yiping looked at them with some pity from behind, and really wanted to say to them, dear, you thought so beautifully, it's just a paragraph, it's far from over.

Yes, starting from the second half of this year, this storm will usher in a new wave. For example, in Hong Kong, the total market value of the stock market will evaporate more than 2 trillion Hong Kong dollars this year. After that, the property market will also plummet. This one must have bought a property with a mortgage, and there are more than one cases, and it will definitely become negative equity by then.

Alas, I don't know if the one in front will be a member of that wave of jumping off buildings.

When he entered the airport, he couldn't help but look back at those two. The middle-aged man in a windbreaker who was trying his best to dress well looked at a child looking at him with pity, even as if he was looking at a dead person. , almost said Dalucan, but he was a little hesitant, and he was not sure whether Feng Yiping was from mainland China.

There is no way, these Hong Kong people, even if they have lost their pants, still have a sense of superiority in front of their mainland compatriots.

However, Feng Yiping did not stay in Hong Kong for nothing this year. In his free time, he went to a few university libraries to read and recharge his batteries, and he also fully appreciated all aspects of Hong Kong—of course, except for those places where the 18th prohibition was prohibited. Dressing also leans towards the wealthy class, and he speaks Cantonese and English more fluently. Besides, he has tens of millions of dollars in the bank, so he is naturally confident. It is normal for him not to be able to tell the difference.

After several hours of flying, the flight finally arrived in the provincial capital in the afternoon. After picking up the luggage and leaving the airport passageway, he saw his parents and sister waving to him at the exit.