From1August 199814th, the Hong Kong government has continuously used nearly 100 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the stock market, futures market and foreign exchange market have intervened at the same time, trying to form a three-dimensional defense network, aiming at boosting the Hang Seng Index, not only to make speculators unprofitable in shorting the August futures index, but also to make them lose money and retreat.
At the beginning of August, 1998, speculators launched a new round of large-scale attacks on Hong Kong. On the 5th, speculators sold more than HK$ 20 billion a day. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority used the government's fiscal reserves to absorb all the funds and stabilized the foreign exchange market at the level of HK$ 7.75 1 USD, which greatly disappointed speculators.
On the 6th, speculators sold more than HK$ 20 billion, and HKMA made a new move, which not only absorbed all of it, but also deposited the HK$ purchased in US dollars back into the banking system, making the bank's monetary policy loose and the interbank interest rate stable.
On the 7th, the Hong Kong dollar entered the third day of the Anti-Japanese War. International speculators continued to sell, HKMA bought as usual, and Hong Kong stocks remained above 7000 points. Tung Chee-hwa, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said on the same day: "We are absolutely capable and determined to maintain the linked exchange rate, and we will certainly do so."
As soon as 14 opened, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority used the Exchange Fund to enter the stock market and futures market for the first time, and seized a large number of blue chips and promissory notes. At the same time, we will improve the bank overnight rate and crack down on international speculators. The market estimates that the capital entering the market on that day is about HK$ 4 billion.
On August 24th, in order to break the speculators' arbitrage plan, the Hong Kong Government took the initiative again and used HK$ 5 billion to intervene in the market. At noon, buying suddenly stopped. As a result, the stock index plummeted by 300 points, and it was only two minutes later that it was bought back to the level of 7900 points. On that day, the Hang Seng Index surged 3 18 points to close at 7845 points.
On August 27th, the eve of futures settlement in August, the SAR government made a decisive battle gesture.
On that day, the global financial news was extremely bad. The Jones stock index fell by 2 17 points, and the European and Latin American stock markets fell by 3%-8%. The Hong Kong stock market is facing a severe test. Under the command of Donald Tsang, the Hong Kong Government injected about HK$ 20 billion a day, which made the Hang Seng Index rise 88 points steadily, laying the foundation for the final decisive battle. On the same day, the International Speculator Quantum Fund declared that the Hong Kong government would fail. Soros openly challenges a government in the name of a company or some people, threatening to defeat a government, which is unheard of and unprecedented.
28th is the deadline for the settlement of term loans. Speculators have a large number of futures orders, which must be sold at maturity. 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 fighting scene between the two sides on that day was far more thrilling than the day before, and the turnover of the whole day reached a record 79 billion Hong Kong dollars. 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 since then, the Hong Kong government has held 4% shares in the Hong Kong stock market equivalent to the total market value of US$ 26,543.8+000 billion, and has become the major shareholder of several blue-chip companies in Hong Kong.
In the whole process of resisting the financial turmoil in Hong Kong, the central government gave strong support. First of all, the central government insists that the RMB will not depreciate. At the critical moment of the decisive battle with international speculators, the central government sent two deputy governors of the central bank to Hong Kong, demanding that all Chinese-funded institutions in Hong Kong go all out to support the Hong Kong government's action to prop up the market and become a strong backing for Hong Kong to overcome the financial turmoil.
In the whole Asian financial crisis, the only thing that resisted Soros's attack without economic collapse was Hong Kong after the reunification, which retained the achievements of Hong Kong's development for decades. At that time, Soros mobilized world public opinion (including Hong Kong public opinion) and lashed out at the Hong Kong government for "administrative intervention in the market", which violated the rules of the market economy. If the then Hong Kong SAR government and the central government gave in to the pressure of world public opinion and did not use macro-control to intervene in the market, it would be a catastrophe.
At that time, Donald Tsang later said that the night before I decided to enter the market, I sat in bed crying, not for myself, but for fear that if this decision was wrong and harmed Hong Kong, how could I explain it to the central government and the public?
Hong Kong monetary authorities are tit for tat. Their measures are to use huge foreign exchange reserves to absorb Hong Kong dollars, raise interest rates and tighten monetary policy. After some exchanges, Hong Kong stocks stopped falling and began to rise strongly, mainly because Chinese and foreign funds entered the market. 24 blue-chip and red-chip listed companies bought back shares from the market, pushing the market up. China Telecom's re-raising of shares above the share price level has also played a certain stimulating role, making red chips and state-owned enterprises rebound calmly. In addition, the interest rate cut in China mainland has also become the theme of market rise, which led to the rapid rebound of Hang Seng Index. Under the strong rebound of the stock market, the exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar returned to stability. At this point, this thrilling battle for Hong Kong dollars has come to an end.