My 1999

Chu Gang ignored the reactions of the audience and said calmly:

"There are no philanthropists on Wall Street. The nature of all institutions is to make profits.

The buy and sell ratings recommended by various institutions are often based on their own interests.

They usually publicly declare that the investment targets they are optimistic about are not worth investing in.

For example, in the past, some Wall Street institutions released various analysis reports on the surface, taking the opportunity to lower the value of Huaxia Banking, but secretly built a large number of Huaxia Banking stocks and finally made huge profits.

In addition, Wall Street can change its position at any time for its own interests.

For example, it used to be pessimistic about Huaxia Oil Industry, but some time ago, after Warren Buffett sold more than $4 billion of PetroChina stocks to Wall Street brokers, some institutions broke the norm and began to strongly recommend Huaxia Energy Industry.

Therefore, I remind all investors that it is important to maintain their independent judgment ability."

The executives or leaders of funds, banks, and China Securities Regulatory Commission from Huaxia nodded in the audience. They also understood these tricks of the Americans, but the price was a lot of tuition fees.

Executives from Moody's, S\u0026P and major investment banks all smiled calmly, not getting angry at all because of Chu Gang's words.

Because Chu Gang was right, they did it that way.

How much is moral integrity worth? First day on Wall Street?

After laying the groundwork, Chu Gang finally talked about the theme of today's speech:

"Today I will talk about the recent hot topic in the financial market - subprime mortgage risk.

Some subprime mortgage bonds were packaged by institutions and rated as "AAA bonds", and then sold to investors all over the world.

As far as I know, many investors in mainland China and Hong Kong and Taiwan bought some subprime mortgage bonds in the past two years, and suffered heavy losses."

"Hanhua Research found that the risk exposure formed by subprime mortgages is constantly expanding, and is rapidly forming larger, unexposed risks in the entire financial system, which may erupt at any time and threaten the real economy."

This is interesting!

Now most people are still optimistic about the risks caused by subprime mortgages and subsequent market trends.

They believe that the state machine has taken action and the risks are controllable. Another small group of people are firm supporters of the view that "a financial crisis is about to break out."

It seems that Hanhua has sided with the minority.

Thousands of people attending the meeting perked up and prepared to listen carefully to the opinions of this star fund manager.

"Due to the disappearance of confidence in the subprime loan market, the prices of subprime loans and related structured products are continuing to fall, and banks and other financial institutions that hold a large proportion of such products are anxious like ants on a hot pot.

As time goes by, the destructiveness of this toxic asset will be fully revealed and reflected in the financial reports of major financial institutions.

Investor confidence will be hit, leading to a second wave of large-scale financial market liquidity problems..."

Chu Gang stood on the stage and shared some of Hanhua's views on the market outlook.

At present, major central banks led by the Federal Reserve are actively rescuing the market and have achieved certain results. The stock market has stopped falling and rebounded, and has repaired the previous decline. The storm seems to have come to a temporary end.

The viewpoint Chu Gang put forward at this time is equivalent to pessimistic about the market outlook.

In China, this kind of behavior of singing against the regulatory authorities will have to pay a price.

Isn't it the United States that has freedom of speech? Everyone can say whatever they want. So Hanhua will not be polite. It will come out to improve its reputation and build momentum for the next wave of financial actions.

"Winter in New York may be colder than in the past few decades. Everyone should keep warm."

Chu Gang ended his speech with a witty remark, and the audience immediately burst into warm applause.

When Chu Gang walked back to his seat, the bankers on the side all cast a complex look at him.

These bankers were still touched by the content of Chu Gang's speech and wanted to exchange views with this famous fund manager.

Soon, the host came on stage to announce the end of the morning meeting and reminded the participants that they could go to the hotel next door for dinner and continue to hold branch activities in the afternoon.

Xu Liang, Chu Gang, and Lin Junrui were about to get up and leave, and Chinese bankers such as Wu Jianmin, Zheng Jiafa, and Sun Qicheng surrounded them.

"Mr. Xu, can we have dinner and chat together?"

Wu Jianmin was the first to speak, and the bankers behind him also invited him.

"There is a meeting in the afternoon, and the time between meals is limited. I will invite a few bosses another day." Xu Liang replied with a smile.

Huamei Bank is the largest Chinese bank in the United States, with total assets of tens of billions of dollars. Wu Jianmin naturally became the leader of this group.

He has known Xu Liang for several years. He has basically participated in Hanhua's fundraising in the United States, but they are not close friends.

Now the other party's refusal is obvious, and he can't bring himself to pester him. He can only look at Duan Yongping for help. He knows that the other party has a good relationship with Xu Liang.

"Mr. Xu, let's chat together. Everyone is very interested in Lao Chu's views on the future market."

Xu Liang still has to give Duan Yongping face.

"Then how about this, find a nice place in the evening, and sit down and chat?"

Wu Jianmin and others happily agreed.

...

In the afternoon, after the TCFA annual meeting, Xu Liang, Chu Gang, and Lin Junrui did not rush to the banquet, but went to the cocktail party organized by the organizer first.

The reception was held in the hotel next door. The number of people was much smaller than that during the day, with less than a hundred people. Those invited to attend were all of a certain level in Wall Street or China.

As soon as Xu Liang and his two friends appeared at the reception, they immediately became the focus of the whole audience.

The environment was noisy during the day, so it was not convenient to get close to make friends, but now the space was more private, and many people came up with glasses to make friends with Xu Liang.

TCFA's rotating president Tang Xiaodong played the role of a middleman, constantly introducing people who came to Xu Liang.

"This is Li Yanxiu, CEO of Frontier Fund, who manages a hedge fund of $2 billion. Like you, Mr. Xu, he is also a financial leader among our Chinese."

Li Yanxiu is about 50 years old, with a shaved head and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He looks like a university professor.

Following Tang Xiaodong's introduction, Li Yanxiu smiled and shook hands with Xu Liang.

"In front of Mr. Xu, I dare not claim to be the best. Mr. Xu is the pride of Chinese people, and he has broken many prejudices against Chinese people on Wall Street."

After exchanging business praises with Xu Liang, Li Yanxiu left with a smile.

Then, Tang Xiaodong introduced Xu Liang to several Chinese people who were doing well on Wall Street.

Li Shanquan, one of the 14 core managers of the famous mutual fund company Oppenheimer, whose managed funds were rated first in the United States.

Deng Kun, executive director and partner of Lazard Asset Management.

This man was once selected as one of the top ten fund managers in the world by the Financial Times of the United Kingdom. The global fund he managed ranked first in yield among hundreds of similar funds in the world for three consecutive years.

After a round of contact, Xu Liang found that Chinese people were not doing well in the mainstream financial circles in the United States.

In the fields of investment banks, hedge funds, and commercial banks, almost all of them are wage earners.

Only Li Yanxiu, who founded Frontier Fund, is an entrepreneur with a little bit of scale, or a boss.

As for bankers such as Wu Jianmin and Sun Qicheng, they are all second and third generations of immigrants.

And all of them are from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

They are not in the same circle as Tang Xiaodong, Li Yanyan and other Chinese and overseas Chinese from the mainland. They gave face by attending the daytime meeting and did not attend the evening reception.

This is also a true portrayal of the Chinese American society, which is fragmented and has countless small circles.

After staying for a while, Xu Liang, Chu Gang and Lin Junrui left the reception and came to a high-end Chinese restaurant in Manhattan - Qilu Feast.

Just by listening to the name of the restaurant, you can know that the bankers have put their heart into it and catered to Xu Liang's taste.

In the box, a group of people sat around a large round table, which was filled with Qilu famous dishes such as Jiuzhuan Large Intestine, Yipin Tofu, and Scallion-fried Sea Cucumber.

Xu Liang felt that it was not bad to eat, not the kind of castrated Chinese food.

Several bankers felt a little bit at a loss, and only picked up a few lighter dishes in front of them.

"Mr. Xu, is it to your taste?

I have inquired about it. The Shandong cuisine chef of this restaurant was invited from Beijing, and he is from Qilu."

Xu Liang smiled.

"Mr. Wu is thoughtful. The taste is very good."

"As long as you are satisfied, eat the food, eat the food." A group of people greeted with a smile.

After three rounds of drinks, Wu Jianmin finally got to the point.

"Mr. Xu, do you think the risk of the US banking industry will explode again?"

Xu Liang smiled and said:

"For this question, I believe everyone should have an answer in their hearts. The real situation of subprime loans should be better known to you than me, an outsider."

"Mr. Xu, you are modest."

The speaker is Zheng Jiafa, the CEO of Cathay Bank, a thin old man in his sixties.

This banker is actually a disciple of Yang Zhenning, and he is also a doctor of applied physics. His dream was to win the Nobel Prize. Later, Yang Zhenning said that he had no talent, so he had to go home and inherit Cathay Bank, which his father invested in and became a shareholder.

Cathay Bank was well managed by Zheng Jiafa. It was listed on NASDAQ more than a decade ago. It has total assets of more than 6 billion US dollars and nearly 40 branches in the United States. Its strength is slightly weaker than that of East West Bank.

In 2004, Tsinghua University established the "Yang Zhenning Lecture Fund". The first donor of the fund was Zheng Jiafa, who donated 1 million US dollars.

At the same time, Zheng Jiafa also established a scholarship in Los Angeles, awarding 5,000 US dollars to six outstanding Chinese students studying in Southern California every year.

Zheng Jiafa sighed: "We are actually fine. We don't invest much in CDO. Even if the value is completely cleared, it won't hurt."

Xu Liang has no habit of getting something for free.

"That's good. In my opinion, it's better to clear the risks of CDO as soon as possible. The pain now is much less than the loss later."

"Thank you for your kind advice, Mr. Xu. If you need it in the future, just tell me."

Sun Qicheng of Guobao Bank said with a smile. This old man is much older than Zheng Jiafa. He is 72 years old and still working at the forefront.

Perhaps because he was born in China, the old man still has feelings for China. During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, he wrote to Tie Xiang to offer advice.

Wu Jianmin nodded in agreement: "Yes, after all, we are all descendants of Yan and Huang. It is not easy for Chinese to work hard in the United States. We should unite."

After dinner, after talking with several Chinese bankers, Xu Liang took Chu Gang and Lin Junrui to say goodbye and left.

——

The next day.

Chu Gang's keynote speech at TCFA made the front page headlines of several mainstream media.

"Private equity giant Hanhua is firmly bearish on the market outlook, believing that the risk of subprime loans is still spreading, and speculates that the financial institutions involved in the trading of subprime bond derivatives have lost astronomical amounts. When the next earnings season comes, the subprime mortgage storm will rise to a higher level." - The Wall Street Journal

"Financial giant Hanhua has changed its low-key style in the past. Its star fund manager has made a high-profile statement on the subprime mortgage risk, believing that the rescue actions of various countries have limited effect, and huge financial system risks will erupt in the second half of the year, and may even affect the real economy." - The Economic Times

"Winter is coming! Hanhua made a pessimistic prediction for the market: Wall Street's coldest winter is coming, and the coldness is comparable to the Great Depression in the 1930s. Everyone should pay attention to keep warm." - The New York Times

...

Sitting in the oversized office at 1184 Greenwich, Xu Liang slid his mouse and browsed the news reports of major mainstream financial media today.

Hanhua grabbed another headline on the front page.

However, Chu Gang's remarks on behalf of Hanhua were still quite topical, which may be the main reason why major financial media widely reported and reprinted them.

Xu Liang then looked at the comment area again and laughed.

"Chinese people predict financial risks? Man, isn't today April Fool's Day? Chinese people also understand finance?"

This book has been recently updated in ##六@@九@@@书@@吧!! Update!

"Chinese people are good at math, maybe they calculated some amazing results?"

"Because they only know math, Chinese people can only do some analyst work on Wall Street."

"Hanhua is already a top private equity fund with a management scale of 100 billion US dollars. Qinglong Fund and Pacific Fund are famous all over the world. We must look at this company objectively and fairly."

"I bet that if this speculation was issued by a certain white fund, it would definitely not be the current comments."

...

Xu Liang found that the opinions in the comment area were roughly divided into three factions. One faction ridiculed and disdained the predictions put forward by Hanhua; one faction remained neutral and believed that it could wait for time to verify; and another faction strongly supported it.

The three parties quarreled and shifted the topic to race.

But there was no cursing or anything like that, because several major financial media have manual reviewers, and the comments are released after review.

However, the intentions of several major financial media were quite sinister. They only did not release the abusive comments, but all other comments that mocked and refuted Hanhua were released.

Perhaps this would be more topical and could be used to stir up the heat?

Of course, financial media would not suffer any loss. If Hanhua's prediction was successful, they would just sing praises behind it.

After closing the news page, Xu Liang began to check his work email.

At this time, he suddenly received a call from Zhang Lei, who said on the phone that he wanted to bring two people to visit him.

Xu Liang briefly considered it and agreed.

Among all the shadow funds invested by Hanhua, Zhang Lei's Hillhouse is one of the ones he is most optimistic about.

In the future, when the memories of the previous life are used up, these shadow funds will still be relied on to help Hanhua achieve performance.

After a while, Li Jinling led Zhang Lei and his three companions into his office.

"Mr. Xu, I won't disturb your work, will I?"

Zhang Lei shook hands with Xu Liang, acting a little restrained.

As the gap between their identities widened, he now felt more and more pressured when facing Xu Liang.

"How come?"

Xu Liang smiled and took his hand back, and cast his eyes on the two young men in their twenties behind Zhang Lei.

"Let me introduce you, this is Ma Ziming, the long-short fund manager of the hedge fund company Ziff Brothers."

Xu Liang smiled and nodded.

He had heard of this person in his previous life. He was the founder of the hedge fund Snow Lake Capital and also a disciple of Zhang Lei.

The company kept a low profile for ten years and became famous for shorting Luckin Coffee.

There are not many Chinese bosses in the hedge fund field, and it is rare to have a fund size of billions of dollars. This person can be regarded as one of the best.

It is worth mentioning that Sun Hongbing's son Sun Jiyi also worked at Snow Lake Capital, and Sunac has a close relationship with Snow Lake Capital.

"Hello."

Xu Liang shook hands with Ma Ziming with a smile on his face, which made the latter so excited that his face flushed.

He was just a small manager, a low-level employee on Wall Street. He didn't expect that the famous Golden Caesar was not only willing to meet him, but also had no airs, which made people feel good about him.

Zhang Lei then introduced another young man who was wearing a pair of glasses and looked a bit nerdy.

"This is Zhao Peng, a quantitative analyst at Citadel Castle Investment."

Xu Liang's eyes lit up, and he felt that the quantitative trading department he had been thinking about for a long time had hope.

This is also a great man.

He is known as one of the few North American Chinese who earns nine figures a year after Lu Qi.

"Mr. Xu, don't look at Zhao Peng's young age, he is actually very powerful.

He was born in the prodigy class of Beijing No. 8 Middle School, was recommended to the Department of Mathematics of Peking University at the age of 14, and received a Ph.D. in Statistics from Berkeley, California at the age of 22. During his more than one year of working at Castle Investment, he created multiple profit equations for the company..."

The prodigy class of Beijing No. 8 Middle School is an experimental class for the education of gifted children established by Beijing No. 8 Middle School since 1985.

The selected students enter school at the age of 10 to 11, take the college entrance examination after four years of study, go to college at the age of 14 or 15, and become a doctor in their twenties.

Zhao Peng also had a classmate in the children's class named Yin Xi, who became a Harvard professor at the age of 24 and was very famous on the Internet in his previous life.

As far as Xu Liang knows, Zhao Peng has been on a roll since he joined Castle Investments.

He was promoted to partner in four years, and in his thirties, he defeated Kevin Turner, the former COO of Microsoft, and became the CEO of Castle Investments, managing a hedge fund of $35 billion.

However, what he didn't know was that Castle Investments played a key role in the "retail investors vs. Wall Street" in 2021, but it was just a villain.

Retail investors are actually just pawns, and this long-short battle is actually a mutual hunt between institutions.

Castle Investments and its subsidiary Melvin Capital, as one of the shorts, lost $2 billion and $6 billion respectively.

Netflix and MGM plan to make this financial drama into a movie.

As the CEO of Castle Investments, Zhao Peng may become the villain in the movie.

After a few pleasantries, Xu Liang invited Zhang Lei, Ma Ziming and Zhao Peng to sit on the sofa.

"Mr. Xu, I actually came to you for nothing but to recommend these two young people to you."

Xu Liang smiled and said, "Hanhua welcomes top talents from all over the world, especially Chinese people."

Zhang Lei breathed a sigh of relief.

"I heard you talk about your long-term optimism about quantitative investment before, but you were struggling to find a suitable project leader. Ma Ziming recommended Zhao Peng to me. I talked to this young man and felt that he was quite good, so I brought him to meet you.

If Gao Ling's temple was not small, I would have wanted to keep him."

Xu Liang vaguely remembered that he seemed to have mentioned this when he sent an email to the other party.

I wanted the other party to find some financial talents for Hanhua through his many years of connections in the United States.

Xu Liang glanced at Zhao Peng, who seemed a little embarrassed to be praised so much.

"Hanhua was established too recently. In order to open up the market as soon as possible and increase our reputation in the financial industry, we have focused our energy on the private equity field in recent years.

We have a weak foundation in quantitative investment.

Of course, this is also related to Hanhua's talent strategy. We always adhere to the attitude of "better to have no one than to have someone who is not qualified" for the leaders of important departments.

But since Lao Zhang recommended you, I believe in his judgment.

So, welcome to join Hanhua."

Zhao Peng nodded heavily, his tone a little excited.

"Mr. Xu, Mr. Chu's speech yesterday was really inspiring.

On Wall Street, which is dominated by old white men, few Chinese can reach the top of the industry.

I decided to join Hanhua at that time, but unfortunately Mr. Xu was in a hurry and didn't have time to recommend himself.

That's why I asked Senior Brother Zhang to recommend me."

Looking at the excited Zhao Peng, Xu Liang didn't expect that the meeting of the Chinese Financial Association that he decided to attend on a whim could actually attract talents?

But then again, Hanhua rose on Wall Street and in the global financial community.

The fact that all the senior executives are Chinese is like a beacon that attracts all the talents who are not appreciated in Wall Street and even in the global financial field.

Wall Street generally recognizes that Chinese people are good at mathematics and are suitable for financial investment work, but it is difficult for Chinese people to climb to the top in this financial world dominated by white people.

It is well known that Chinese people will encounter a "transparent ceiling" in the United States.

In Silicon Valley, the top position is the vice president in charge of technology, and in Wall Street, the top position is almost the managing director.

Even in Wall Street, the ceiling is lower. In large financial institutions, Chinese people can only be the top few hundred people, but not the top dozens or the top few.

"Are there any requirements for treatment?" Xu Liang asked.

Zhao Peng said directly: "I want to be in charge of an independent fund with uninterrupted investment authority.

And the initial amount cannot be less than 10 million US dollars."

Xu Liang smiled and said: "With your qualifications, 10 million US dollars is too little. Let's put it this way. When you join Hanhua, the company will directly give you 100 million US dollars in initial funds.

If you are completely on the right track and start fundraising, 1 billion US dollars or 2 billion US dollars will be no problem."

Zhao Peng's breathing suddenly became a little faster.

100 million US dollars at the beginning, is this the strength of a top hedge fund?

Zhao Peng instantly felt that he had come to the right place this time. Mr. Xu was obviously more generous than his current boss.