Chapter 510: Warning of Black Swan and Preparation for War

Just as Li Xiaofan was actively preparing for the "Hong Kong Island Financial Defense War" in August this year, a huge storm was brewing in Indonesia, next to Singapore.

The situation in Indonesia has attracted the close attention of Mr. Tang's family and Li Xiaofan.

At the beginning of last year in 1997, the exchange rate of the Indonesian rupiah to the US dollar was still around 2,300 rupiahs to 1 US dollar.

Last summer, in August, the Indonesian Ministry of Finance and Bank Indonesia jointly announced that they would abandon the exchange rate policy pegged to the US dollar and implement a free floating exchange rate policy, and the Indonesian rupiah fell sharply by 5%.

On January 5 this year, the Indonesian foreign exchange market fell again, and the exchange rate of the Indonesian rupiah to the US dollar fell to 6,700 rupiahs for 1 US dollar, a 3-fold drop compared to the beginning of last year!

After Indonesia announced the draft national fiscal budget on January 6, the poor figures and economic plans once again caused the Indonesian rupiah to plummet to 7,762 rupiahs for 1 US dollar, and the decline continued unabated.

On the morning of January 7, the rupiah fell 12.\n2% as soon as the market opened, hitting a new low of 8,400 rupiah to 1 US dollar, and the Jakarta stock market also plummeted 4.\n4 percentage points.

On January 8, the rupiah's decline was calculated by the hour. As soon as the market opened in the morning, the exchange rate rushed to 9,300 rupiah to 1 US dollar, and then to 10,100. By the time the market closed in the evening, the rupiah's exchange rate against the US dollar fell to 11,000 rupiah, breaking the 10,000 rupiah to 1 US dollar mark! This triggered a food rush in their country...

On January 23, the rupiah's exchange rate against the US dollar plummeted to 15,000 rupiah to 1 US dollar, hitting a new historical low! Compared with 2,300 rupiah to 1 US dollar at the beginning of last year, it plummeted 7 times!

Since the Asian financial crisis broke out in July last year, the rupiah has plummeted by nearly 80% against the US dollar, bringing huge impact to Indonesia's economy. It is estimated that Indonesian companies have debts of more than 60 billion US dollars, and Indonesia's total debt has actually exceeded 200 billion US dollars...

Grandpa Tang and Tang Jiaming are fortunate that many of their coal mining businesses in Kalimantan are exported to neighboring countries, so the impact is slightly less.

Although Li Xiaofan made a lot of money by shorting the rupiah and Indonesian stock index futures, Indonesia is currently hit hard by the Asian financial crisis that started in 1997. The prosperity that lasted for 30 years was destroyed, the local currency plummeted, fuel and food prices soared, and public resentment was boiling. If I remember correctly, the amazing May black swan vicious incident in the previous life was about to break out.

All he could do now was to launch a public opinion warning offensive.

Starting in January, Li Xiaofan secretly organized several core employees of the company to continuously post a large number of warning posts on websites and forums such as Yahoo in the United States, AOL, Yahoo Singapore, Yahoo Japan, Indonesia University Network UNINET, and Indonesia Science and Technology Network IPTEKNET. Remind local Chinese in Medan, Palembang, Lampung, Jakarta, Solo and Surabaya to leave as soon as possible if possible, as black swan malicious incidents are predicted to occur in April and May...

In fact, similar malicious incidents have already appeared in Rongpan (Makassar) in September last year, Bandung, Bima and Flores Island in January this year.

In February, similar malicious incidents also began to occur in Central Java, West Java, Sumatra and towns around Jakarta.

In March and April, malicious incidents seemed to have signs of escalation.

Things seem to be developing in the direction warned in the posts published by Li Xiaofan's organization...

During this period, Li Xiaofan spent a lot of "public relations fees" to ask major foreign media reporters to pay attention to and report on small-scale malicious incidents happening in the area.

For a time, the Washington Post and New York Times in the United States, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Sun in the United Kingdom, the Chaori Shimbun in Japan, the Lianhe Zaobao and the Straits Times in Singapore, and the world-famous portals such as AOL and Yahoo reported and paid attention continuously. The fermentation of a large amount of public opinion finally attracted the attention of international organizations such as the United Nations, and also sounded the alarm for some people in Indonesia, so that the large-scale vicious incident of the Indonesian black swan in May 1998 did not happen...

Li Xiaofan found that when the Asian financial crisis was spreading in various Asian countries and regions, the previous US economic expansion was approaching the longest period on record.

Ice and fire.

Although the Asian financial crisis had an impact on US exports, the US stock market was soaring.

Wall Street investors once again favored technology stocks, and the US stock market was pushed to a historical high, resisting the extremely fragile economy.

Since 1998, the United States has seen a huge "Internet boom". From pet products to grocery and toy stores, all industries that can be thought of have established a website. After establishing a website, those traditional industries have transformed themselves into Internet technology companies, including retailers, office buildings, media companies, car manufacturers, and even driver businesses...

Li Xiaofan found that the current scene seemed very familiar. Many years later, a similar situation occurred in China, but now Americans are ahead.

Of course, the biggest beneficiaries are those Internet technology listed companies on Wall Street, whose stock prices have been constantly hyped and pushed up.

As one of the leaders of the US Internet, Yahoo's stock performance is particularly outstanding and eye-catching.

Yahoo has now become an internationally competitive enterprise. They use the customer resources in their hands to obtain the price of cooperation with business giants.

After the establishment of Yahoo Singapore and Yahoo Japan, Yahoo Europe, Yahoo Canada, etc. were also established one after another, accelerating the pace of globalization.

After the company went public, Yahoo accelerated its mergers and acquisitions and diversified its business.

Yahoo seems to have found a way out of the best business opportunities contained in the Internet. It first swallowed up the online news publishing rights of news giants such as CNN and Reuters Holdings; then it turned to e-commerce and monopolized deals with retailers such as bookseller Amazon and music product company CDnow; greedy Yahoo went all the way The binge eating continued, eating the traditional projects of the Internet, email and chat rooms, and finally even involved the entertainment industry...

In just a few years, Yahoo has transformed from an ordinary online search service company into an all-rounder on the Internet, providing a dazzling array of services and information.

Do Internet users need to pay attention to news, stock prices, weather and emails every day? Visit Yahoo!

Want to find a home, plan for retirement, or research Ebola? Yes, still look for Yahoo! It is even a gathering place for some netizens. They play online blackjack games here all day long, buy high-end handmade cigars, or enter the game world of Hero Company...

By April 1998, Yahoo's stock had exceeded $180.

The market value of the 2.65 million Yahoo shares held by Li Xiaofan exceeded US$480 million.

Li Xiaofan previously pledged part of Yahoo's shares to borrow US$100 million from Citibank and Wells Fargo. By May, he simply pledged all the remaining Yahoo shares and loaned out another US$200 million.