July 27, Saturday.
Manhattan Explorers Club from the lower city.
This is the third day in a row that White-Haired Old Man has been sitting alone in this leather chair.
He no longer wanted to look at Friday's market - the "Close All Positions" order issued on Thursday was completed after Friday opened.
The last batch of Short Position was cleared near 289 US Dollar. He only glanced at the transaction confirmation and closed it.
At this moment, there were two documents spread out on the coffee table in front of him:
On the left is the final Risk Exposure liquidation report sent by PB Departments this morning.
On the right is the book Black Notebook written by himself,
From November last year to July this year, every Short Selling decision was recorded.
Densely packed numbers and arrows snaked down the page into a long, downhill path.
He was not wearing his trademark dark blue linen coat, only a white shirt.
The cuffs were rarely unbuttoned and hung loosely on the forearms.
Whisky This time, wine was actually poured into the cup. The amber liquid swayed silently at the bottom of the cup, and the ice cubes had long since melted.
The final loss figure is marked in a red box on the last page of the liquidation report--
This number was enough to push his fund's annual performance to rock bottom.
It was enough for him to write the most difficult apology of his career in his letter to investors at the end of the year.
He turned the report to the first page, then from the first page to the last page, and read it three times.
Then take off your glasses and put them on the coffee table, close your eyes, and press your eyebrows firmly with your thumb and index finger.
He has long been able to recite these numbers by heart -
During the period from 300 to 178, his floating profit was so large that he felt that this round of Short Selling was the most correct trade in his career.
But floating profit is not profit. If it is not put into your pocket, it is just a number on the screen.
He did not close the position near 178 because he wanted to make more;
He did not close the position near 250 because he believed that the SEC's investigation would break Era Vanguard's Capital Chain.
Two opportunities to leave the market with huge profits were let go by his own greed and arrogance.
He opened his eyes, picked up the Black Notebook, and turned to the first page.
November 16, 2018.
Nvidia Financial Report plummeted, with the stock price falling more than 18% in a single day.
Era Vanguard submitted its first 13G declaration, with a shareholding ratio of 4.99%.
He scrawled a line in the margins of the page:
"New players have entered the market, and the volume is not small. Focus on tracking."
He spread the notebook flat on the coffee table and flipped forward page by page.
Each page is a memory compressed into numbers and arrows.
In December, SoftBank cleared Nvidia, and Era Vanguard bucked the trend and accumulated funds during the most intensive window period of Selling Pressure.
13G's revised declared shareholding ratio jumped from 4.99% to 7.3%.
He drew an upward arrow in the margin of the page and placed a question mark next to it.
In January, Era Vanguard submitted 13D and its shareholding exceeded 10%, becoming the largest institutional shareholder of Nvidia.
He circled the number "10%" on this page and drew an asterisk next to it with a red pen.
There are only four words in the comment - "They will liquidate their positions."
In February, Short-Seller Alliance reached an agreement and concentrated their firepower on Short Selling Tesla, smashing through Era Vanguard's pledge safety pad.
The stock price dropped all the way from above 300 US Dollar.
He drew a downward arrow next to the date when each integer barrier was breached.
The arrows are getting denser and denser, and his handwriting is getting more and more sloppy.
In March, Tesla saw repeatedly between 250-260 US Dollar.
Short Sellers There was a disagreement for the first time - someone began to quietly close positions and take profits.
At the bottom of the page he wrote:
"Weak allies are not worthy of trust." In April, the stock price fell below 200 US Dollar.
The number on the notebook dropped from 300 to below 200.
His handwriting changed from sloppy to neat - the closer he got to his target, the calmer he became.
178.50 US Dollar, which is only half US Dollar from Liquidation Line of Era Vanguard.
His hand paused on the page.178.50.
That number was written in his notebook by his own hand, and the date was May 9.
He drew two horizontal lines next to it and marked "Liquidation Threshold 178" with a red pen.
At that time, he thought those two horizontal lines were the finish line of victory, but later he realized that they were the edge of the cliff--
It's not Era Vanguard's cliff, it's his own.
Next page.
On May 9, the stock price was caught by a huge buy order at 178.50 US Dollar.
Pulling back 188 US Dollar from 178.48 in a single day, Era Vanguard completed the first large-scale replenishment at the bottom.
He scrawled a line in the margin of the page:
"Where did the money come from?"
These words are layered upon by more and more questions in the following pages--
In mid-May, Era Vanguard started a two-front battle, simultaneously scanning Tesla and Nvidia;
In late May, the funds pledged by Henglong stocks were transferred from Hong Kong to the Era Vanguard account;
When the SEC launched an investigation in June, he thought the outcome was decided.
He put question marks on every page, and each question mark pointed to the same question:
How much ammunition does Era Vanguard have?
The answer was fully revealed in the SEC attachment in July.
He turned his notebook to the latest page, which contained the Bitcoin price chart printed from Bloomberg Terminal.
The trend chart is marked with the Zhao Chen position opening window, Swing Trading window and liquidation window--
Three time windows, all within the golden age of Bitcoin from 800 to 17,000.
In the margins of the chart he wrote just one word, "Clean."
From November last year to July this year
, a time span of more than eight months,
Dozens of pages of dense transaction records and annotations. He once thought he was hunting a young man who didn't know the heights of the world.
Later it was discovered that the young man not only knew all the habits of his prey,
He had bypassed all the traps early, even when he thought his prey had no way to escape,
He was quietly walking around behind him along another forest path.
He turned the notebook to the last page, picked up the pen, and wrote the last line on it.
The pen tip paused on the paper for a while, as if considering what to say, and then dropped it--
"From November last year to now, eight months.
We chased from the warehouse of Bitcoin, to the warehouse of Nvidia, and then to the warehouse of Tesla, Pledged Shares.
At the end of the chase, it wasn't that we miscalculated his leverage, it was that he calculated one step further than us--
He figured we'd count his leverage."
He put down his pen and closed his notebook.
That afternoon, the bald man pushed the door open and saw the old man sitting alone on a leather chair.
Spread in front of him was the closed Black Notebook and the empty Whisky cup.
He glanced at the liquidation report marked with a red box on the coffee table, without asking about the numbers.
He just sat silently on the chair opposite the old man, loosened his tie, leaned on the back of the chair and looked at the ceiling.
After a while, two other old faces who were still on the battlefield also came in one after another, without anyone speaking first.
"It's over."
White-Haired Old Man took out the closed Black Notebook from his arms,
Placed next to the liquidation report, the two things were stacked together, like putting the last wax seal on a long battle.
"We were not defeated by Era Vanguard. We were defeated by our own arrogance.
From the beginning, we didn't believe that a young man from China who was just in his early twenties could make a huge difference in Wall Street.
By the time we believed it, it was already too late."
He tapped his fingers on the notebook cover twice, and then pushed it to the bald man.
"Leave it to you as a souvenir.
If anyone wants to use High Leverage to hunt an opponent you don't understand in the future, first take a look at the numbers in this book."