American Fortune Life

"Coach, sorry, I need to answer the phone..."

In the VIP waiting room of Los Angeles International Airport, Andy said to the old coach Alexie with a helpless expression on his face.

"Andy, we're about to board the plane..."

"I know, but I can't help it. It's a call from US Treasury Secretary Paulson..."

Alexie twitched the corner of his mouth, stretched out his hand and waved it, watching Andy walking towards the bathroom with the phone in his hand, the bodyguards behind him kept walking, and smiled helplessly.

"Hello, Your Excellency the Minister."

"Andy, I don't have time to be polite to you. I hope you can stop suppressing Bear Stearns. This will further spread the panic on Wall Street!"

Andy heard Paulson's aggrieved and angry words on the phone, curled his lips, and said haha: "Sorry, Mr. Minister, what happened? As you know, I have been preparing for the Olympic trials recently, you Look, I'm going to board the plane soon...Look at my brain, I forgot the name of that country again, I've been exercising a lot recently, as for the panic you mentioned, Mr. Minister can't talk nonsense..."

"Tell me, what do you want! As long as it's not too much, I can promise you!"

Andy heard Paulson's direct showdown, and held back the perfunctory words that came to his lips. However, he is not a child, and promises that come out of his mouth can't be exchanged for his guarantee.

"Mr. Minister, I really don't understand what you mean. I haven't paid attention to Wall Street recently. Otherwise, I'll call and ask my people, what are they doing?"

"... Andy, no matter what you think, I hope you can take care of the overall situation. Bear Stearns cannot fall, at least not now. I have contacted MG Chase, and they will act as an intermediary to cooperate with the Federal Reserve. Injecting capital into Bear Stearns . . . ”

"Haha...Mr. Minister, capital injection? Well, even if I don't know what's going on now, but don't fool me, Bear Stearns is hopeless, now you tell me that MG Chase is going to inject capital, only a fool will believe it , short-term loans? Hehe, the current stock price of Bear Stearns..."

"... $30, down 47%..."

"Haha...cough cough, sorry, sorry, oops, listen, the airport has informed us that we are going to board the plane, huh? Coach, wait a moment, I'll be right there, Mr. Minister, sorry, I'm going to board the plane, so, I'll find out more about the situation in a while, and I'll call you back when I arrive in that country. I'm really sorry. After all, it's an Olympic selection.

This is a major event that cannot be delayed. I will call you after I get off the plane. . . "

The Treasury Building on the east side of the DC White House.

"..."

With a dark complexion, Paulson tightly held the phone in his hand, listened to the busy tone from inside, and finally gave a wry smile, slowly put the phone back where it was, and shook his head and smiled wryly at a group of staff members across the desk.

"He declined and was already on the plane..."

A group of staff and staff in the finance minister's office also sighed solemnly.

"As expected, he will not stop at this time point. He has plundered 13.5 billion US dollars from gold futures, of which 3 billion is used to repay the bank loan for the acquisition of Bloomberg shares, and the remaining 10 billion is all used. In the short Bear Stearns hedge fund.

They have already started to make arrangements very early. On Monday, the US stock market began to circulate that Bear Stearns may have a liquidity crisis. The news spooked the market, with investors selling financial stocks.

On the same day, Bear Stearns had to issue an announcement to refute the rumors. CEO Schwartz exclusively interviewed CNBC in an attempt to quell any speculation about Bear Stearns.

But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also clarified for Bear Stearns on Tuesday, saying that it is "very confident in the buffer capital of these investment banks."

But starting on Tuesday, more and more lenders and customers began to withdraw their funds from Bear Stearns, even though Bear Stearns actually had a stable capital buffer at that time. But now Bear Stearns' excess liquidity is drying up quickly.

Simultaneously, the British newspapers began to publicize the Bear Stearns crisis, and European banks also had to become worried and began to stop trading with Bear Stearns. Some U.S. fixed-income and equity traders started doing the same on Tuesday, pulling cash out of Bear Stearns, fearing the funds would be frozen if Bear files for bankruptcy.

Last Thursday, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that companies doing business with Bear Stearns are becoming more cautious, and more and more partners are withdrawing funds. Bear Stearns executives spent most of their time on the phone, trying to quell rumors that the bank was unwilling to do a deal with it and demand more loans against its mortgage

The biggest headache was that no matter what Bear Stearns did, word would soon spread through Wall Street that, as it became clear, Bear could not cope with the constant withdrawal of worried clients.

Brokerage firms that had previously been willing to take mortgages insisted on cash, and hedge funds that had borrowed on Bear Stearns began withdrawing cash from their accounts. By 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Schwartz was convinced Bear Stearns was hopeless and had to turn to the Fed for help.

And today is their harvest day. Even if we agree to his conditions now, he will not stop. After all, it is worth more than ten or two billion yuan. . . "

"boom!"

Paulson slammed the table down and said angrily: "This bastard! This will deal a heavy blow to the entire financial system of the United States."

"..."

"What else can we do, we can't let the stock price of Bear Stearns continue to plunge!"

"..." The audience defaulted.

"Minister, the overall situation is settled. We can only watch his men leave the market after harvesting. Unless MG Chase acquires Bear Stearns now, it is possible to curb the suppression of their huge funds. They used 5 times leverage, almost With the power of tens of billions of dollars to hit the stock price, no one in the entire market is their opponent except for a few of the largest funds, and these funds are... hey, they are all shorting Bear Stearns!"

"They're all a bunch of greedy vampires! Damn it, he can't be allowed to continue to be so unscrupulous. His destructive power is too great. Hamilton, tell me, who might their next target be?"

"The biggest possibility is - Lehman Brothers!"

"What?!" Hearing the answer, Paulson suddenly stood up from his chair and stared at the subordinate who gave him the answer. He couldn't imagine what kind of panic would happen on Wall Street if Lehman was also shorted by Andy. .

"Andy Smith is very good at planning in advance, and his think tank takes this kind of boss's preference as a characteristic of their work. After they select targets, they will spend a few months dispersing funds to enter the market in advance, and so on. After finishing, they will create panic in the market and release all kinds of news. The most troublesome thing is that these news are still true. Fake.

Then, they will use huge capital flows to hedge, and their successful experience time after time has also led many hedge funds to follow them to pick up bargains.

Just like this time, more than 80 billion US dollars have been shorted Bear Stearns. Even if they buy two Bear Stearns, they still have surplus, but they control the rhythm very well and will never kill them all at once. The only thing to do is to cut the meat slowly and wait for Bear Stearns to ask for help.

In other words, no matter how much money we lent to Bear Stearns, most of it would end up in Andy Smith's pocket. . . "

"No, he must not be allowed to continue doing this! Give me an appointment with Old Smith, and Auston Smith, and hold a press conference, I want..."

"Boom——"

"Minister, Bear Stearns' stock has plummeted 53%..."

"Shet! Do it right away, now!" Paulson's face twitched, his entire face turned black, and he waved his hands and growled in a low voice, "This greedy shark must be stopped!"