LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 217: Who Killed ofo?
Throughout the entire day, Lu Liang was busy gathering evidence and conducting investigations, deducing processes from the known outcomes.
As some often say, he strikes wherever he points.
In reality, it's the opposite; he points wherever he strikes.
He first identifies the outcome, then deduces the process from that outcome, arranges the causes and consequences, and ultimately strives to maximize benefits.
With less capital in the past, he could afford to charge in recklessly, but with a significant amount of funds now, he has no choice but to proceed this way.
In the end, Lu Liang set his sights on the nonfarm payroll and unemployment rate data to be announced at the end of August.
These two sets of data could be the fuse for the Dow's big fall; if that were the case, they had only three days left.
During these days, Lu Liang, accompanied by Sun Yutao, Wen Chao, and others, visited major investment banks such as Citibank, HSBC, and State Street throughout Modu.
He planned to use four billion dollars to short the Dow, and another one billion dollars to buy London Gold with a five-times leverage.
It's an ironclad rule: when the stock market plummets, gold soars.
Moreover, it was the plummet of US stocks, known as the financial lighthouse, that drove even more capital to seek refuge in the London gold market, further driving up the price of gold.
With more and more funds at his disposal, Lu Liang could also execute multiple strategies; shorting the Dow was a steady profit, while going long on gold came with high risk and high reward.
Because he only knew the lowest point of the Dow, but not the highest point of gold.
The London gold market's trends could only be determined by his judgment, so he did not dare to engage too much capital with increased leverage.
He just wanted to make a bit of profit on the side and then make a quick exit.
While Lu Liang was busy with his preparatory work, two not-so-big but not-so-small things happened on the internet over the past few days.
The one-month deadline had passed; Dai Wei had not returned, claiming to be still seeking investment, but it was almost certain he had fled.
Consequently, a bunch of suppliers sued Mobike, and Dai Wei was listed as a discredited individual.
However, it was of no use; Mobike disclosed its assets, with just over a million in company funds.
Whoever wanted it could come and take it.
But if anyone took it and walked away, over a million shared bicycles would be left unmanaged, and the website would be left inoperative, ensuring complete and utter failure.
A company that's given up has nothing to fear, as the current vice president merely collects a monthly salary and acts as a monk for a day, ringing the bell for one day's service.
The suppliers were indignant but powerless; the larger suppliers even had to help Mobike by persuading the smaller ones not to take the money.
Taking it would mean Mobike's bankruptcy would turn into a bad debt.
By not taking it, at least it was considered a non-performing loan, tiny as the chance of recovery might be, but there was still some hope.
After all, there were still over a million bicycles.
As the news spread, over 18 million creditors berated Mobike online once again, along with Dai Wei and his family.
This gave Weibo quite a shock; they could only forcibly push the hot topic of Wang Bao's divorce to try to cover up Dai Wei's news.
However, Forbes decisively kept the news hot by publishing Lu Liang's interview "Who Killed Mobike?"
"This is a case about a single veto right..."
Through Lu Liang's account, netizens learned why the once-powerful Mobike collapsed almost overnight.
During round A funding, Golden Sand River became Mobike's strategic investor and acquired veto power in the boardroom.
In round B funding, DiDi also became a strategic investor, gaining veto power as well.
Including Dai Wei, the company now had three veto powers, but Mobike was still not satisfied.
During round C funding, they introduced Jingwei Capital, birth to the fourth veto right.
If the company had been progressing smoothly, with each capital institution counterbalancing the other, Dai Wei would still have been Mobike's helmsman.
But when Meituan made a strong bid to take over Mobike, and someone, unwittingly revealed Lu Liang's high-level cash-out news,
Mobike had no choice but to bring in Ali, who took over Golden Sand River's shares and wanted to parachute into the management team. Dai Wei disagreed, so the four veto rights started being used in turn.
Ali wanted to bring in Softbank, and the originally agreed five hundred million dollar investment was dragged on until it disappeared.
"Damn, did Dai Wei think he was Emperor Wu of Han, playing around with Enfeoffment Decrees? He really should check out what the United Nations is like."
"I've never done business and even I know companies should avoid having two kings; they ended up with four suns."
"Heh—With decisions like that, Mobike deserved to die."
"Am I the only one who thinks Lu Liang looks even more handsome and youthful than his official photo on the market announcement website?"
"Stop dreaming. No matter how handsome he is, can you eat that? Or can it help me get my 199 yuan deposit back?"
"At this point, what can we do? We might as well look forward to Lu Liang's public fund offering."
"Don't you know that public and private funds can't coexist? Do you have any idea how long the cycle of Tianxing No. 3 is? Three years, by then the flowers will have wilted."
Seeing public opinion shifting, the operation department of Weibo decisively chose to harm both sides less, opting for the lesser of two evils.
Dai Family is truly someone you can't afford to provoke, so they have to apologize to Lu Liang first, and help him look for juicy scandals in the entertainment industry that could be released to deflect public attention from him.
These past few days, they've been very nervous, worrying about receiving an accountability call from Lu Liang.
However, Lu Liang seemed unaware, as online public opinion smoothed out over the first few days.
It wasn't until the divorce incident of Wang Bao reignited and Ma Song began to stir trouble that the focus of public opinion shifted away from Lu Liang.
"Thanks to Wang Bao and Ma Song."
The Weibo operations department would have liked nothing more than to erect a monument for them, and they certainly turned up the heat on the Wang Bao divorce incident.
After all, it's best to stick to the entertainment industry when it comes to chatter, to avoid getting involved in more complex issues that they couldn't handle.
Meanwhile, Lu Liang adjusted to the time difference and adopted a nocturnal lifestyle to prepare for short selling the Dow.
"Is it failing to break through the 20,000-point barrier?"
That night, he entered the adjacent trading room and looked at the three major stock indices displayed on the wall, which were Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ.
Although their significance and status are worlds apart, if pushed, you could find their counterparts in China.
They are the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Growth Enterprise Market Index.
The Nasdaq corresponds to China's Growth Enterprise Market, but with relatively low listing requirements, no mandatory profit goals, only the need to meet one of the conditions like net profit, total market value, or net assets to list.
Companies like Panda, NIO, and Li Xiang, and even the nearly defunct Mobike, would probably choose the Nasdaq if they met one of the criteria.
However, while the Nasdaq's pre-listing requirements are lenient, there's a strict set of standards to follow after listing, unlike Big A, where being listed is pretty much like holding a secure job.
Nasdaq-listed companies have to maintain an opening price above 4 US dollars for 90 days, afterwards, the price must not drop below 1 dollar, or they risk being downgraded or delisted.
On the other hand, meeting these standards can propel them to the global market, making them visible to more people and institutions, and financing becomes much simpler.
By short selling Dow Jones, in a way, Lu Liang was short selling the Shanghai Stock Exchange Index of the United States.
As the world's largest and self-proclaimed freest market, short selling futures has indeed become a specialized project.
Forking out only one-thousandth of a percent in stamp duty for a single trade from forty billion dollars, with no other charges thereafter.
"Base it on the Dow, and when there's an attempt to break through the 20,000-point mark, place short sell orders on the index while going long on London Gold."
Lu Liang looked relaxed and leisurely, munching on a pineapple bun and sipping soy milk, having long lost the initial feeling of tension.
After a year of team coordination, his crew operated with ease, and he just had to steer the ship.
It probably wouldn't take long for Lu Liang to step back and, transforming his private fund into a public one, to retire from the private sector and move into public funding.
If public and private funds can't coexist, then don't make them.
There's no reason why he couldn't support a puppet to take the lead, with the private side focusing on overseas and the public side on domestic.
By 9:30 at night, the US stock market opened, with the three main indexes showing a slight increase ranging from 0.14% to 0.22%.
The Dow was at 19,850 points, and since the implementation of the quantitative easing policy in '08, it had been setting new historic highs almost every month.
In six years, from a low of 6,469 points, it rose to almost 20,000 points today, more than tripling.
This reminded Lu Liang of a trip to Macau with Little Wang earlier in the year. He remembered a blackjack table that went on a streak of ten in favor of the dealer.
He heard from the casino gamblers that there was a professional term for this pattern, called "chasing the dragon."
Lu Liang saw many gamblers start by betting 1,000, then 2,000 for the second round, followed by 4,000 for the third.
If they kept doubling like this for ten rounds, 1,000 would turn into 1.024 million by the tenth round.
But by the third or fourth round, they began to bet less and less until the dealer didn't win anymore, referred to as "cutting the dragon."
The stock market worked similarly, as fear of heights is human nature.
Such rapid growth had accumulated a large pool of profits, and the market's expectation for continuous rises was too high.
As soon as any unfavorable news appeared, it could shake investor confidence, potentially triggering massive sell-offs.
And thus, a flash crash could occur.