bookrebus Chapter 311 6666
Chapter 311 6666
January 2, 1998, 9:00 AM.
When Ling Yun pushed open the door to Yu Hui Capital, the office was already full of people. Some were holding coffee, some had documents spread out in front of them, and some were staring motionless at the candlestick charts on the screen.
The air was filled with the mixed smells of coffee and tension.
Li Ziyu stood at the conference room door, holding a freshly printed data report. Seeing Ling Yun, he quickly walked over.
"Mr. Ling," he lowered his voice, "Yesterday the Hang Seng Index closed at 6983. This morning it opened at 6823, and it's currently at 6812."
Ling Yun nodded.
He walked into the conference room. Three people were already seated around the long table—Chen Ziang, and two older traders.
Ling Yun took his seat in the main seat, and Li Ziyu sat down next to him, placing the report in his hand on the table.
"Is everyone here?" Ling Yun asked.
"Everyone's here," Li Ziyu said. "The ones outside are all here too."
Ling Yun glanced at the clock on the wall. 9:05.
"Let's begin," he said.
Li Ziyu cleared his throat and opened the report. "Everyone is aware of the situation over the past three weeks. The Hang Seng Index rebounded from 7280 to 8730, then fell back to 6983 yesterday. It continued to fall this morning, currently at 6812."
He paused, then looked at Ling Yun.
"Mr. Ling, what's the next step?"
The conference room fell silent. All eyes were on Ling Yun.
"I'm going all in next," he said.
Chen Zi'ang was stunned for a moment. "What?"
"Fully invested." Ling Yun repeated, "Hang Seng Index, fully invested long."
There was a two-second silence in the conference room. Then the trader next to Chen Ziang spoke. He was a man in his thirties, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and with his hair neatly combed.
"Mr. Ling, are you fully invested now?" His voice was restrained, but the doubt in his tone was unmistakable. "According to technical analysis, the Hang Seng Index needs to drop at least another 1500 to 1800 points before it finds support. Entering the market now is too risky."
Ling Yun looked at him. "What's your name?"
"Zhang Mingyuan," the man said, "graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and worked at Goldman Sachs for three years."
Ling Yun nodded, offering no comment.
Another trader spoke up; she was a woman, around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with short hair and sharp eyes. "Mr. Ling, I graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics and worked in quantitative trading at Morgan Stanley for two years. From the model's perspective, the market's fear index isn't high enough yet, and the sentiment bottom hasn't been reached. Going all-in now is definitely too early."
Ling Yun looked at her. "What's your name?"
"Lin Jiayi".
Ling Yun nodded again.
Then he looked at Chen Zi'ang. Chen Zi'ang didn't speak, but the expression on his face said it all—he disagreed, but was just holding back.
"You all want to wait?" Ling Yun asked.
Chen Ziang took a deep breath. "President Ling, I don't want to wait, I want to wait for a reasonable entry point. From a technical, fundamental, and sentiment perspective, now is not the time."
"So, what do you think is a suitable amount?"
Chen Ziang glanced at Zhang Mingyuan, then at Lin Jiayi. The three exchanged glances.
"Around 5800 points," Chen Ziang said. "If it falls below 7000, look at 5800. That level has strong support; it's the low point from last October."
"5800 points?" Ling Yun repeated.
"That's right." Chen Ziang nodded. "If the market panics excessively, it may fall to 5500, but anything below 5800 is a safe zone for building positions."
"Below 6666 points," he said, "fully invested."
The meeting room fell silent.
Chen Ziang opened his mouth, then closed it again. Zhang Mingyuan's glasses slipped, and he reached out to adjust them. Lin Jiayi stared at Ling Yun, her eyes wide as if she were looking at a madman.
Li Ziyu didn't say anything, but he tightened his grip on the report.
"President Ling," Chen Ziang finally spoke, his voice a little dry, "what's the basis for this number?"
"have."
"What's the basis for this?"
Ling Yun looked at him. "6666, so smooth!"
Chen Ziang's face slowly turned red.
He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice calm. "Mr. Ling, I graduated from Harvard Business School and worked on Wall Street for four years. I can accept risk and losses, but I need to know why. 6666, was that number just randomly chosen?"
Ling Yun did not answer. He walked back to his seat and sat down.
"You're all graduates of top universities," he said in a flat voice. "Wharton, Princeton, Harvard, and those other universities. I've also heard of Stanford and Columbia."
No one spoke.
"I know all those models, indicators, and theories you've learned," Ling Yun said. "But I'm telling you today, those things are useless in this market."
Chen Ziang's breathing became heavier.
"Useless?" he repeated. "President Ling, do you know how many years we've spent learning those 'useless things'?"
"I know," Ling Yun said, "but useless is useless."
Chen Ziang stood up.
His face was flushed, and the veins on his neck were bulging. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't find the words. His hands were clenched into fists, and his knuckles were white.
"President Ling," he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, "I don't understand."
"You don't need to understand," Ling Yun said. "You just need to execute."
"Execute?" Chen Ziang's voice rose. "You mean you want us to use tens of millions of dollars to execute a number called '6,666'? What's the special significance of this number? Did you dream about it last night, or did you draw it while playing mahjong?"
The air in the meeting room seemed to freeze.
Li Ziyu frowned, wanting to say something, but Ling Yun raised his hand to stop him.
Ling Yun looked at Chen Ziang, his expression unchanged.
"You want to hear the truth?" he asked.
"I want to." Chen Ziang gritted his teeth.
"To be honest," Ling Yun said, "you are only responsible for execution; you don't need to participate in decision-making."
Chen Ziang was stunned.
Zhang Mingyuan and Lin Jiayi, who were standing nearby, were also stunned. The traders at the workstations outside, although separated by a glass wall, seemed to sense something and all looked up in their direction.
"What...does that mean?" Chen Ziang's voice trembled slightly.
"What I mean is," Ling Yun picked up his water glass and took another sip, "you are traders, not fund managers. Your job is to execute orders well, not to figure out when to enter the market for me."
Chen Ziang's face turned from red to white.
He stood there, stunned, as if struck by lightning. Several seconds passed before he finally found his voice.
"President Ling," he said, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth, "when I joined this company, President Li told me that this is a place that respects professionalism, and I believed it to be true."
"Professionalism." Ling Yun repeated the word. "What is professionalism? What you've learned is just what capitalists use to fool idiots. You're using this to fight against capitalists? Have you all been brainwashed into becoming idiots?"
Chen Ziang opened his mouth.
"Professionalism means being able to execute instructions effectively, no matter what they are," Ling Yun said. "It's not about refusing to execute something just because you think it's wrong."
Chen Ziang clenched his fists even tighter, his nails digging into his flesh, creating white crescent-shaped marks.