Chapter 278 The Battle to Defend Hong Kong’s Financial Sector Begins

In recent times, New World has followed international hot money in acquiring high-quality industries in Southeast Asian countries. Of course, compared with international hot money, New World's size is not large.

At most, they were little sharks following them eating meat and soup.

Everything is going very smoothly, and there are achievements in various countries in Southeast Asia, especially the Zhang Qiandan team in Java.

Most of the rubber plantations in Java's Lionai Province were taken over by Zhang Qiandan, and the prices were pitifully low.

According to the news brought by Zhang Qiandan, the situation of the Chinese in Java is very difficult and they are second-class citizens of Java.

The factory in Thailand has also been established. It only needs a few production lines. As soon as the production lines arrive, production can start.

Basically, the few brothers sent out have achieved something.

Even Fang Zhanbo received news that the latest Hang Seng Index exceeded the 16,000-point mark.

But Li Qing was not very happy when he heard the news. His intuition told him that a dark cloud was quietly beginning to gather.

He had a premonition that after international hot money swept across Southeast Asia, it began to attack Hong Kong.

He immediately called Fang Zhanbo and said, "Zhanbo, please check if anyone in the stock market is hoarding a large amount of Hang Seng Index constituent stocks."

He had read reports about Old Man Suo in his previous life. If his approach to the Southeast Asian financial crisis was 1.0, then his approach to Hong Kong had been upgraded to 3.0.

The first step in Mr. Suo's plan is to hoard a large amount of Hong Kong dollars in the foreign exchange market to prepare for future exchange rate shocks and avoid excessive costs when temporarily raising Hong Kong dollars in the future.

This has been confirmed by Mr. Huo Dong, who also found some clues.

The second step is to disperse and conceal a large number of Hang Seng Index component stocks, which makes the Hong Kong stock market continue to rise in a "bull market" state, triggering investors to enter the market one after another, allowing the Hang Seng Index to break through new highs.

Now that the Hang Seng Index has exceeded 16,000 points, this is proved, so Li Qing firmly believes that it must be Old Man Suo who leads the international hot money to plunder the wealth of Southeast Asia and head towards the newly returned Hong Kong.

"Wait a minute, Zhan Bo, let's check the trends of the futures market." Li Qing bit his lip and continued.

The third step he vaguely followed from the old man was to hoard a large number of short stock index futures contracts in futures, preparing to buy them back at a low price to close the position after the stock market downturn.

Because futures leverage is very high, once the stock market falls sharply, short orders lurking in the futures market can bring unimaginable returns.

"Suppress the foreign exchange market, sell short the stock market, and make profits in the futures market." These are the three famous tactics of Mr. Suo.

These three tactics rely on each other and complement each other, coupled with making false claims in the east, attacking in the west, concealing Chen Cang, and building momentum in the media.

This is the art of short selling by Old Man Suo.

Fang Zhanbo on the other end of the phone was stunned for a moment, but he agreed immediately and immediately sent someone to investigate the situation of the foreign exchange market, stock market, and futures market.

After half a day of investigation, Fang Zhanbo got more precise information and quickly called Li Qing.

"Brother, judging from the current situation, there must be people hoarding Hong Kong dollars, and the futures market has also found that there are capital hoarding short orders."

Fang Zhanbo was a professional after all, and he instantly realized that someone must have taken action against Xiangjiang Financial.

But the worst news he received was that the other side had begun to sell off the Hong Kong dollars they had accumulated.

"What did you say? Some capital sold HK$46.5 billion in the foreign exchange market?"

When Li Qing heard Fang Zhanbo's report, he clicked his tongue in surprise. International hot money is really rich in capital!

"Well, I suspect there will be continuous selling of Hong Kong dollars in the future, which will impact the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate."

Fang Zhanbo guessed.

Li Qing was silent for a long time, "Continue to pay attention to the stock market and futures market. We can only stand still now."

It is not appropriate for them to take any action until the Hong Kong government issues corresponding policies.

As Fang Zhanbo expected, Hong Kong's exchange rate market was shaken, and the Hong Kong dollar began to depreciate in a short period of time.

Immediately afterwards, international hot money sold another 31 billion Hong Kong dollars and 7.8 billion Hong Kong dollars respectively.

The entire Hong Kong dollar devalued to its lowest point, and for a while people in Hong Kong began to exchange their Hong Kong dollars into hard currency US dollars.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority also responded quickly and charged punitive high interest rates to banks that repeatedly borrowed Hong Kong dollars from it through the liquidity mechanism.

The overnight lending rate soared from 9% to 300%, making the Hong Kong dollar a rare commodity.

This was the first confrontation between the Xiangjiang government and the international hot money represented by Old Man Suo, and Xiangjiang won the first battle.

Li Qing and Fang Zhanbo also analyzed the current situation of Xiangjiang.

"Brother, the move of 'raising interest rates' has indeed temporarily driven back international hot money, but its drawbacks have also appeared."

Fang Zhanbo frowned and said, as the most professional person, he knew that "raising interest rates" was just drinking poison to quench thirst.

‘Raising interest rates’ will suppress normal borrowing demand and be detrimental to the development of the real economy.

As he expected, there were now lines of people running in front of the major banks in Xiangjiang.

"The other side won't give up like this." Li Qing said thoughtfully while smoking a cigarette.

Judging from the information known in the previous life, this time is just a test by Old Man Suo, and a greater crisis is yet to come.

A few days later, Mr. Suo's Quantum Fund released a large amount of bad news about the Hong Kong stock market in advance, and panic affected the entire Hong Kong stock market.

Investors sold their stocks one after another, and the Hang Seng Index fell sharply. Everyone thought that Mr. Soo's next step was to short the stock market just like he did with Thailand and the Philippines.

Even Li Qing and Fang Zhanbo were no exception, staring nervously at the stock market.

But Mr. Suo was indeed a genius. He directly turned his attention to Hong Kong stock futures and sold a large number of short orders in the futures market that he had previously purchased, making a large profit from it.

With one move, Xiangjiang suffered heavy losses and a large amount of wealth was taken away.

In this case, the international hot money represented by Old Man Suo won.

After getting the results, Li Qing was also depressed for a while. Although he knew the general direction, he still couldn't prevent Xiangjiang's losses.

Fang Zhanbo looked at Li Qing and hesitated to speak.

"If you have anything to say, just say it, don't be coy."

Li Qing took a puff of cigarette, looked at Fang Zhanbo and said.

"Brother, Old Man Suo is too powerful. We can't stop him. We might as well save the fire for Xiangjiang..."

Fang Zhanbo said softly.

"Do you know what you are talking about? Do you want to enrich the country? Are you fucking crazy?"

Li Qing scolded Fang Zhanbo.

"No, I just want to preserve my strength for Xiangjiang." Fang Zhanbo said aggrievedly.

Li Qing was silent. He also felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart, and a feeling that he was unable to exert his strength. After all, if he entered rashly, he would attract attention.

He didn't want to damage the image he had finally built up, so he could only wait until Xiangjiang Financial could no longer hold on and ask for help before he could enter the market openly.

After all, his New World Financial Company is known as the underground bank of Xiangjiang. Sooner or later, these funds will be used in the financial defense battle in Xiangjiang.

"Zhanbo, we are not businessmen. We cannot only focus on profit, and we should do something and not do something. You have read more books than me, so you should know this better than me."

Fang Zhanbo nodded.

"It's almost here, wait a minute!"

Li Qing sighed and looked at the gloomy sky outside the window.