From 65438 to 0997, the practices of some large funds represented by quantum funds in Hong Kong are classic examples of three-dimensional speculation.
Under normal circumstances, due to the existence of non-arbitrage equilibrium relationship between financial markets, with the birth and development of various financial derivatives and their markets, the spot market, forward market, money market, capital market and derivative market of foreign exchange are interlocking, locking one after another, which will affect the whole body. Typical examples, such as June 1997, June 10, and several subsequent attacks by international speculators on Hong Kong's financial market, first of all, international speculators borrowed a lot of Hong Kong dollars in the money market and sold Hong Kong dollars, forcing the Hong Kong government to substantially raise the interbank interest rate in the money market; The sharp rise in interbank interest rates in the money market led to a decline in the stock market; At the same time, the Hang Seng stock index futures in the derivative market fell sharply. The plunge of HSI futures accelerated the decline of the stock market; The decline in stock prices has sharply reduced the confidence of foreign investors in the Hong Kong economy and the Hong Kong dollar, and they have sold Hong Kong stocks in exchange for US dollars, putting the Hong Kong dollar under a new round of depreciation pressure. The chain reaction of various markets finally expanded the speculators' victory in an all-round way.
It is expected that the attack on Hong Kong's foreign exchange market will cause a chain reaction, and international speculators will make a three-dimensional layout in various markets. On the one hand, they will increase their bets in various markets and encourage speculation; On the other hand, once the speculation is successful, you can get a full harvest and match the speculative risk with the high income. Soros made a vivid description of this: "If you regard the general portfolio as a flat or two-dimensional thing, as the name implies, it is the easiest to understand. However, our portfolio is more like a building. Based on our share capital, establish a three-dimensional structure with structure and financing, supported by the pledge value of basic shares. ..... We are willing to invest capital according to three main axes: stock position, interest rate position and foreign exchange position. ..... different parts reinforce each other, creating this three-dimensional structure composed of risks and profit opportunities. Usually two days-a rising day and a falling day-are enough to make our fund expand at a high speed. " . International speculators made full use of this "three-dimensional speculation" strategy when attacking Hong Kong's financial market: first, they borrowed a lot of Hong Kong dollars in the money market; In the stock market, borrow constituent stocks; Accumulate short futures in the stock futures market; Then use spot trading to short the Hong Kong dollar in the foreign exchange market and sell the Hong Kong dollar forward contract at the same time; Forcing the Hong Kong government to raise interest rates to defend the linked exchange rate; In the stock market, the borrowed constituent stocks are thrown out to suppress the futures index. On the whole, based on the close relationship between financial markets, the "three-dimensional layout" strengthens the risk exposure of speculators and greatly increases the motivation and income of leveraged speculation.
The Hong Kong dollar is linked to the exchange rate system and has an automatic adjustment mechanism, which is not easy to break. However, the interest rate of the Hong Kong dollar can easily rise sharply, which will affect the sharp decline of the stock market. In this case, as long as you short the stock market and futures market in advance, and then borrow a lot of Hong Kong dollars from banks, the interest rate of Hong Kong dollars will rise sharply and the Hang Seng Index will plummet, you can get speculative profits as in other countries. Since 1997 and 10, international speculators have made four attempts in Hong Kong's stock market, foreign exchange market and futures market, and the first three attempts have made huge profits. From the end of July to the beginning of August, 1998, international speculators once again attacked the Hong Kong dollar through hedge funds, pushing up interest rates and interest rates. Obviously, their attack on the Hong Kong dollar is only superficial, and the stock market and futures market are the real main targets. Introduction to the east is Soros's consistent speculative means, which has been successful many times.
Speculators sold stocks and futures index in the securities market, which greatly suppressed the Hang Seng Index and futures index, causing the Hang Seng Index to drop from 654.38+00000 points to 8000 points and directly to 6000 points. When the rainy weather is coming, the bad news in the securities market is flying all over the sky, and speculators take the opportunity to talk nonsense, threatening that "the RMB can't stand it, and it will depreciate soon, with the depreciation rate exceeding 10%". "The Hong Kong dollar will be decoupled from the US dollar and devalued by 40%" and "The Hang Seng Index will drop to 4,000 points". Its purpose is nothing more than disturbing people's hearts, creating a "herd mentality", and then taking the opportunity to fish in troubled waters. On August 13, the Hang Seng Index once fell by 300 points, breaking through the 6600 mark. At the close, the decline narrowed, but it still fell 199 points to close at 6660 points. Its trend is very similar to that of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets in the second half of 200 1 year. Landmines are ringing every day, and the trend of "knocking down" is shocking.
While depressing the Hang Seng Index, international speculators have accumulated a large number of short positions in the Hang Seng Index futures market. Every time the Hang Seng Index drops by 65,438+0 points, each short position contract can earn HK$ 50. In the first 65,438+09 trading days of August 65,438+04, the Hang Seng Index plummeted by more than 2,000 points, and each contract earned HK$ 654,380+,showing the high income!
After the Hang Seng Index was suppressed to the bottom of 6660 points on August 38+03 in the first round, the Hong Kong Government mobilized Hong Kong, Chinese and British capitals to enter the market and started a battle with their rivals for the August stock index futures contract. Speculative capital means that the air force wants to suppress the index, and the Hong Kong government wants to hold the index, forcing speculators to sell contracts at a high level in advance, and cannot cash out at a low level before the end of August. After the Hong Kong government entered the market, it bought a large number of August stock index futures contracts with short speculative funds, pushing the price up from 66 10 before entering the market to 7820 on the 24th, with an increase of over 8%, which was higher than the average opening price of 7500 investment funds. After the market closed, the Hong Kong government announced that it would use the Exchange Fund to intervene in the stock and futures markets. However, financial snipers are still unwilling. According to the original plan, on August 6th, 16, Russia was forced to give up the action of defending the ruble, which led to a complete collapse of the US and European stock markets on August 6th, 17. However, to their great disappointment, on August 18, the Hang Seng Index was near misses, and closed slightly down 13 points.
In the second round, the two sides launched a warehouse transfer war from August 25 to 28, forcing speculative capital to pay a high price. On the 27th and 28th, speculative capital swarmed out in the stock spot market in an attempt to outperform the index. At the same time, the Hong Kong government clung to the stock market. After eight days of soul-stirring fighting, the contract price of the futures market in August was pushed up to 7990 points, and the settlement price was 785 1 point, which was 1200 points higher than before entering the market. On August 27th and 28th, the Hong Kong government accepted all the sales orders. As a result, the transaction amount reached HK$ 20 billion on the 27th and HK$ 79 billion on the 28th, setting a record for the highest transaction in Hong Kong.
On the 27th, on the eve of futures settlement in August, the SAR Government made a decisive gesture. Although the global financial news was extremely bad that day, the US Dow Jones stock index fell by 2 17 points, while European and Latin American stock markets fell by 3%-8%. The Hong Kong stock market is facing a severe test. According to market sources, the Hong Kong government injected about HK$ 20 billion a day, which made the Hang Seng Index rise by 88 points. Lay the foundation for the final decisive battle.
On the same day, the International Speculator Quantum Fund declared that the Hong Kong government would fail. The chief investment strategy of Soros Quantum Fund, an international speculator speculating in the Hong Kong market, admitted for the first time that Quantum Fund had been shorting the Hong Kong dollar and the Hang Seng Index when interviewed by American consumer news and business channel TV. He also said that due to the economic recession in Hong Kong, the "war" launched by the Hong Kong government against international investors in the foreign exchange market and the stock market will end in failure. Although Soros made big moves every time, he never publicly admitted that he was attacking a certain currency. It is unheard of and unprecedented for him to openly challenge a government in the name of a company or some people and threaten to overthrow a government.
The 28th is the futures settlement period, and speculators have a large number of futures orders that must be sold when they expire. If the stock market and foreign exchange market can stabilize at a high level or continue to break through, speculators will lose hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, otherwise tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars invested by the Hong Kong Government a few days ago will be thrown into the sea. The scene of the war between the two sides on that day was far more thrilling than the day before. All-day turnover reached a record of HK$ 79 billion. The Hong Kong government has made every effort to resist the unprecedented selling pressure from international speculators. At the close, the Hang Seng Index reported 7829 points, which was 1 17.55% higher than that in August before HKMA entered the market.
Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's Financial Secretary, immediately announced that the Hong Kong government had won the battle against international speculators and defended the Hong Kong stock market and the Hong Kong dollar. Market participants in Hong Kong estimate that the Hong Kong government has invested more than HK$ 654.38+000 billion in the two-week stock market support operation, and concentrated on buying the stocks of several major blue-chip companies in Hong Kong. It is estimated that the Hong Kong government currently holds 4% of the total market value of the Hong Kong stock market of US$ 26,543.8+000 billion, and has become a major shareholder of many blue-chip companies in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Futures Exchange introduced three new measures on the 29th. That is, from the opening of the market on August 3 1, a special deposit of 1 50% will be levied on customers who hold more than110,000 Hang Seng Index futures contracts, that is, the deposit for each Hang Seng Index futures contract will be adjusted from HK$ 80,000 to HK$120,000; Reduce the requirement of reporting large positions from 500 contracts to 250 contracts; At the time of declaration, the identity of a large number of positions must also be declared to the futures exchange.
On March 3 1 day, the stock market plunged by 7. 1% after the government terminated the support action, but the decline was less than market participants expected. The Hang Seng Index fell 554.70 points to close at 7,257.04 points, with a total turnover of only HK$ 6.6 billion, less than one tenth of last Friday's record high of HK$ 79 billion. However, some investors had predicted that the index might plummet 15%.
However, speculative capital is not willing to rest. They believe that the Hong Kong government has invested about HK$ 654.38+000 billion, which cannot be sustained for a long time. Therefore, they decided to change the time of shorting stock index futures contracts from August to September to fight a protracted war with the Hong Kong government. Since August 25th, speculative capital has been shorting September contracts in large quantities while liquidating August contracts. At the same time, the Hong Kong government pursued victory on the basis of closing the contract in August, making the price of the September contract 650 points higher than the settlement price of the August contract. In this way, speculative capital has to pay more than HK$ 30,000 per contract. The investment capital completely failed in the contract competition in August.
In the third round, the Hong Kong government continued to push up the price of stock index futures in September, forcing speculative funds to leave at a loss. On September 7, the financial management department of the Hong Kong Government promulgated new regulations on foreign exchange, securities trading and settlement to restrict speculators' speculation. On that day, the Hang Seng Index soared 588 points to close at 8076 points. At the same time, the appreciation of the yen and the stability of Southeast Asian financial markets have increased the capital and transaction costs of speculative capital, and speculative capital has to retreat. On September 8, the contract price in September rose to 8220 points, and the speculative funds transferred at the end of August had to close their positions and leave, and each contract lost another HK$ 40,000. On September 1 day, when the trading results of the spot market on August 28th were delivered, the Hong Kong government found that the trading shares of HK$ 146 billion could not be delivered due to loopholes in the settlement system, and speculators were able to escape.
In this consecutive 10 trading day intervention, the Hong Kong government intervened in the stock market, futures market and foreign exchange market at the same time, trying to form a three-dimensional defense network, which prevented international speculators from exerting their good means of "introducing from the east to the west" or "shaking the mountain". Specifically, since most speculators sell futures below 8,000 points, the Hong Kong Government hopes to push the Hang Seng Index to a level close to 8,000 points, raise the settlement price of the August futures index, and let the September futures index fall back, thus widening the gap between the two. Even if some speculators want to transfer warehouse receipts from August to September, they have to pay hundreds of points for admission, which greatly increases the cost. In terms of specific operations, the Hong Kong government and international speculators will focus on large blue-chip stocks, mainly including HSBC, Hongkong Telecom, Cheung Kong Industrial and other stocks. These stocks have large capital stock and high market value, which play an important role in the fluctuation of Hang Seng Index. Take HSBC as an example. This stock accounts for 30% of the Hang Seng Index, so it has become a competitive stock. By the end of August, 1999, calculate the stocks bought at that time. The book profit was about HK$ 71700 million, up by 60.8%, and the Hang Seng Index rebounded to 13500. International speculators suffered heavy losses, and the Hong Kong government's entry into the market was a great success. It is said that Soros lost $800 million alone. It is said that the China government used foreign exchange reserves to support the government. But the market is opened by the government itself, so it is a little entertaining to go in and play (criticized by Greenspan).