In just over half a month, Gu Kun and Soros adhered to the attitude of "do it first, don't tell it" and quietly withdrew all their firepower and ammunition from the Thai Baht battlefield and transferred it to the Malay Ringgit battlefield.
In the original history, during the Southeast Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, there seemed to be no difference in the priority of attack between the Malay ringgit and the Philippine peso.
However, this time, Soros was more cautious. He felt that since Gu Kun openly clamored to defend the financial order in Southeast Asia and called on everyone to unite.
So, Gu Kun's top priority to protect should be the Malay ringgit, right? After all, the ringgit is considered to be most of Lanfang's local currency.
If Gu Kun dares to be long on the ringgit, then Soros can be short.
The financial strength of the two parties is still more than five times different. Soros feels that he can easily bankrupt Gu Kun, who is opposing him, and make this bug that beeps all day long and slander him from a moral level disappear.
At the same time, because Gu Kun's operations are very covert, he will not personally build positions in his own name, but will make hidden investments through various shells operated by Liang Jinsong's Blackstone Fund Asia Pacific. This adds to Soros's identification.
Difficulty.
Because in the process of Soros opening a short position in the ringgit, other hot money from other alliances that followed the trend would also secretly open positions, and Soros could not identify them one by one. He could only judge from the final result, whether Gu Kun made a profit or a loss.
to judge whether Gu Kun has entered the market.
Within five days from November 15th to 20th, international hot money attacked separately, and the ringgit and Philippine peso began to fluctuate. The ringgit fell by 15% within a week, and the trend continues to expand.
Fortunately, Malaya has not implemented the lazy policy of "forcibly binding the ringgit exchange rate to the US dollar" like Thailand, so the ringgit's own bubble is not as big as the Thai baht.
Historically, during the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the Thai baht fell by 60% at its peak, while the ringgit only fell by 30% at its peak.
No matter how crazy Soros is, it is impossible to change the laws of nature and the objective fundamentals of a country's economy. So even if he goes all out in this life, he will basically be able to suppress so much.
However, what surprised Soros was that on November 22, Gu Kun actually appeared in public again, and he appeared as a moneymaker.
It's just that Gu Kun's acting skills are better and his acting is more passive.
It was an interview with Malay Sarawak TV. The program asked Gu Kun about his views on the recent fundamentals of the Malaysian economy, whether he felt there was a bubble, and whether he himself had made any investment gains recently.
In theory, Gu Kun could not answer these questions, but since he chose to carry the flag, it was better not to avoid them.
"I have indeed opened a short position in the ringgit recently and made about US$300 million. However, this is a normal hedging - because I have predicted that although the ringgit does not have a bubble, it cannot withstand the international hot money.
I am maliciously bearish. I cannot watch the people of Lanzhou suffer losses.
You should know that currently in Lanzhou, we have called on the people in advance to switch to the other currency of the dual currencies, the RMB. However, there are still a large number of ignorant citizens who are unwilling to believe it, so they have suffered losses.
The ringgit short position I established this time will not exceed the capital assets of all the people of Lanzhou. It is just a hedge to offset this part of the losses. Because Lanzhou is too weak and has a weak foundation, it cannot withstand such an impact. I have no intention of doing so.
Any malicious actions against the financial environment of friendly neighboring Malaya. I guarantee that even if there is any gain from this hedging, I will make up for the losses of the Malaysian citizens in other ways."
The proportion of people who believed Gu Kun's words was not very high, but it somewhat alleviated the Malay people's resentment towards him for "escape from battle".
As for the people of other Southeast Asian countries, after hearing the news, most of them thought: If Gu Kun really fulfilled his promise, and in the end this hedging and speculation was indeed the national behavior of the Lanfang Islands, there would be nothing wrong with it.
People will be punished if they don't do it for themselves. Although Lanzhou is a Southeast Asian country and should advance and retreat with its neighboring countries, there is nothing wrong with giving priority to its own country.
In addition, Lanfang has not issued a local currency for nearly 14 years since its founding. It has always used the ringgit as one of its local currencies based on trust. This time the ringgit cannot defend its currency value. Lanfang people want to avoid risks and switch to RMB. Then
It is also justified.
As for the hundreds of millions that Lan Fang made from hedging, the Malay authorities should just regard it as repaying the debt that Lan Fang used ringgit for 14 years.
You must know that in modern countries, the right to mint money is also a very important right. If a small country entrusts you with the right to mint money, you should protect it.
However, compared to the generally accepting attitude in Southeast Asian countries, Soros was really angry to death when he saw these remarks.
"Fake?! How can there be such a shameless person in the world? You promised to fight to the end against a despicable and malicious short-seller like me, but you are actually going against me! I will kill you in seconds! While carrying a flag and shouting curses at me,
While doing the same investment operations as me? Still making so many excuses?"
Soros was so angry that he immediately asked his assistants to carefully screen to see if Gu Kun had made any move on the Philippine peso transaction.
If you don't find it, check again for the next wave of Indonesian rupiah transactions.
If Gu Kun is caught following the trend by saying one thing and doing another, he will be exposed immediately.
It's a pity that he will never find out again, because the ringgit wave was Gu Kun's last move before the Hong Kong dollar. The Indonesian rupiah and the Philippine peso, Gu Kun chose to completely ignore and completely let go.
At the same time, in view of Gu Kun's "inconsistency between words and deeds" on ringgit trading, Soros feels that his plan to publicly respond to media doubts can also be accelerated.
He notified Fox TV that on November 24, he would go on TV to publicly respond to the international community’s doubts about various operations during the Southeast Asian financial crisis.
On the evening of the 24th, Atlanta, Fox Television Studio Center.
Soros went on TV as promised.
He first criticized Gu Kun for saying one thing and doing another.
Then he changed the topic and pretended to be a compassionate person who was scientific and unemotional, expressing his understanding for hypocrites like Gu Kun.
"... I think all the doubts so far are caused by the public's incomprehension of the laws of the financial market. Finance is just a field where mathematical science can exert its strengths. This field itself has no moral attributes.
Whether a financial asset is overvalued or undervalued is a natural attribute determined by objective science. If I don't detonate its false high or low value, there will be others who will detonate it. Philosophy cannot be false, and algorithms are king here...
…”
All in all, it is the same old saying that Soros has always kept in his heart.
There are also some pretentious philosophical terms mixed in during this period, mainly some pretentious rhetoric of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy. (I believe no one likes to read philosophy, so I won't use those long official words.
This is just to explain that Soros has always regarded himself as a philosopher. He studied philosophy with Karl Popper in college. He often whitewashes his investment behavior as "teaching mankind to better understand the world and using practical combat to expose existing beliefs."
Errors in the way we know the world”)
Finally, I exposed the truth that "Gu Kun actually made money by shorting the ringgit, and his behavior is no different from mine."
…
On this side of the ocean, Gu Kun did not watch Soros on TV for the first time.
He doesn't have that much free time, nor does he have the energy to overcome the jet lag.
So he didn't know the relevant news until the next day, and then asked Midlova to get a tape of the replay.
"Haha, it is indeed such a cliché." After reading, Gu Kun pressed the remote control contemptuously.
Midlova thoughtfully reminded: "My colleagues in the press noticed Soros's speech faster than us. Today, this friend who I met at the Thai National Television reminded me to tell you.
They also said that if you want to respond publicly, you can tell them at any time and they will arrange an interview schedule for you as soon as possible - do you want to respond immediately?"
Gu Kun waved his hand: "No rush! After we choked last time, Soros held it in for several days. He acted first and then spoke before he responded to us. If we scolded him as soon as he responded, it would appear that we are not graceful enough.
.
Have you ever watched a Hong Kong movie? The older the boss is, the more he has to take his time to appear. Let’s give him a first-come-first-served approach. First, make sure all short positions in ringgit are cleared, and then arrange the use of the money earned. We have enough evidence.
Now, let’s fight him back hard - by the way, after we choked last time, how long did it take for Soros to respond?”
Midrova tilted her head and thought: "It must have been more than a week, almost half a month."
Gu Kun then ordered: "If we delay it for so long, it is estimated that His Highness the Grand Duke will notice this matter soon, and it is almost time to discuss with me how to deal with it."
His guess was indeed correct. As expected, the next day, Zhu Youdong called and asked Gu Kun to come to the palace for a secret talk.
As soon as he met Gu Kun, Zhu Youdong got straight to the point: "You made... 500 million U.S. dollars from the recent short selling of the ringgit?"
It turned out that because the scale of this wave of ringgit speculation was relatively small, Gu Kun did not notify Zhu Youdong, nor did he spend the Lanfang royal family's funds. Therefore, the 500 million earned was considered to be Gu Kun's personal earnings, and there was no original Thai baht.
During the speculative period, Q3 opened.
Zhu Youdong felt itchy and unbearable. Although he later realized that he had secretly followed the trend and even fell back a little while running, he only made tens of millions in total. After all, it was not as good as when Gu Kun took him directly.
Gu Kun's specific gains were generally confirmed by watching Soros's counterattack on Fox TV and other information channels.
"It's almost 500 million. I didn't do too much because I didn't want to give the world the impression of going back on my word. You know. I will use actions to prove that Soros has a villain's heart when he retaliates against me."
, to save the gentleman’s belly.”
Zhu Youdong: "Do you really want to use these 500 million to save the losses of our people during the current ringgit depreciation process?"
Gu Kun: "Yes, but I won't pay directly."
Zhu Youdong: "Now can you tell me how you want to allocate this money, how you want to win people's hearts, or what purpose you want to achieve? You must go through me on this matter."
Gu Kun: "Of course, I am here today to discuss with you the specific operations of this matter."
——
PS: The above is already 3,000 words long, I will say a few words later for free.
There are quite a few book friends who have been questioning in the past few days that "Soros is not a low-key person, he likes to openly denounce people."
I did not deny this. My book never said that Soros did not face the media at all. I just wrote that "in the early days, he liked to make a fortune in silence and did not like to make noises."
Later, many financial media also analyzed and said that Soros likes to openly pessimize, but everyone failed to pay attention to a timing issue, that is, he did not pessimize when the Thai baht storm just started, but there was a time lag.
In fact, the time when he took the initiative to denigrate and appeared most frequently was precisely the time when he shorted the Hong Kong dollar and ultimately failed.
From a logical analysis, why is this happening? I think it is very simple.
That is, every time he faces the media, he has a motive. He knows that every time he faces the media, he will get more hatred, so he doesn't face it if he can. He is not a masochist at heart, and he is not "regardless of being treated by others".
A pervert who "sees hatred as joy", at least he knows that hatred is not a good thing.
When he comes forward, it is often when the battle situation is relatively stalemate and the battle between the short-sellers and the long-sellers is confusing. At this time, in order to destroy the confidence of the bulls, he has to make a high-profile appearance at the cost of more hatred. (I have seen many Soros reports in China.
At that time, it was actually not the time when he started to engage in Thai baht)
If the situation is clear, the enemy is very weak and the odds are against him, and he can easily kill his opponent and make a fortune silently without showing up, then he tends not to show up. The previous chapters in the book are at this stage.