Chapter 3 Chapter Three "Murder with a Borrowed Knife" and Short Selling

For a writer, to complete a work, he must have rich creative experience and certain creative skills; for a general, to win a war, he must have a well-equipped, combat-capable army. Excellent team; for a stock investor, if he wants to gain profits in the stock industry, he must have a wealth of stock market investment knowledge, a flexible mind, and more importantly, he must have a certain amount of funds.As the saying goes: "It's hard for a clever woman to cook without rice." To do anything, you must have the corresponding capital.So, for stock investors, is there any way to achieve success without investing too much capital?Experts in stock investment will tell you: Yes!That's called a short sale.

Short selling of stocks, also known as short positions, refers to investors borrowing stocks from others, and then selling these stocks to others, hoping that the price of such stocks will fall in the future, and then buying them back when the stock price really falls. The stock is returned to the stock owner.For a long time, ordinary Chinese have regarded "buying short" and "short selling" as a kind of immoral speculative behavior unique to capitalists. This is no wonder, because there is no credit transaction or futures transaction in the Chinese stock market. There is no option trading.In fact, "short buying" and "short selling" are inevitable legal transactions in the stock market, especially "short selling", which accounts for a certain proportion of stock transactions in various countries.For example, in 1987, short-selling transactions on the New York Stock Exchange accounted for about 6% of the total stock transactions.In our country, with the renewal of people's ideas and the gradual spread of stock investment, such transactions will gradually increase.Therefore, the author believes that it is necessary to introduce this relatively "special" investment method for readers here.

Both short selling and short buying are speculative transactions, but the former is more risky than the latter.Because in a short-selling transaction, what the investor expects is that the price of the stock he short-sells will fall in the future. In general, this kind of loss is much greater than the loss suffered by short-selling transactions, because theoretically speaking, there is no upper limit to the rise of stock prices.And the losses suffered by short-selling exchanges will not exceed the price paid by investors when buying a certain stock.Because the price of the stock will never fall below zero.The goal of a short-buying transaction is just the opposite of a short-selling transaction, that is, investors buy stocks and expect the price of such stocks to rise in the future.As mentioned earlier, an investor who does short selling needs to sell the stocks he borrowed, and finally buy back these stocks in full to return to the original owner, but he only hopes to earn the price difference from the selling and buying.So, where did investors borrow the stocks they shorted?He can borrow from the client who opened the account. If the client in the margin account cannot borrow suitable stocks, the securities company can go on to borrow from other securities companies or stock owners who specialize in lending stocks to others. According to the regulations of the bill, securities companies cannot borrow stocks from customers who have opened cash accounts, unless they are authorized by these customers.

In general, short selling is very risky, highly speculative and risk-taking.However, since the stock market, people have been engaged in this kind of risky investment, and even some ordinary investors who do not have a deep understanding of the stock market are also trying it. What is the reason?This is because this kind of investment does not require much capital, and the stocks needed are all borrowed from others. Once successful, investors will have a large income, and will have the feeling of "killing someone with a borrowed knife". "Borrowing a knife to kill" was originally the third strategy in the first set of victory strategies in "Thirty-Six Strategies". "The enemy is clear, but the friend is not yet determined. Invite friends to kill the enemy. Don't contribute your own efforts, use damage, and deduce." It means that the enemy's front has been clearly defined, but the attitude of the third party is still unstable. He should be induced to destroy the enemy in order to save With his own strength, he is good at using the logic of "loss up and benefit down" in the "loss" hexagram to reason and calculate.

The word "borrow" in this plan has multiple meanings.To lure the enemy into obedience, to wait for work with ease, is to borrow the enemy's strength; to create illusions, to cause misunderstandings among the enemy's various units, to kill each other, to borrow the enemy's sword; to take it from the enemy and use it for the enemy, to borrow the enemy's property; To create contradictions among the generals and make them fight against each other is to borrow the enemy general; to find out the enemy's strategy and then follow the strategy is to borrow the enemy's strategy.and so on and so forth. "Murder with a knife" is not only a political strategy, but also a military strategy. It requires the planner to be good at using the power of a third party, and be good at creating and using the contradictions in the enemy's camp to defeat the enemy and win the victory. The story of "Duke Zheng Huan destroying Qi" is a very typical example.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Huan of Zheng wanted to send troops to destroy the neighboring country of Qi in order to expand his country's territory.However, he heard that there are a group of capable civil servants and military generals under the monarch of the state of Nai. They have strategy in literature and courage in military, and they are all loyal.If you rashly send troops to attack, you will meet their strong resistance, and it will be difficult to succeed for a while.We should think of a clever plan, first get rid of this group of loyal ministers and generals in the country of Nai, so Zheng Huangong resorted to the trick of "killing people with a borrowed knife".

Duke Huan of Zheng first ordered his subordinates to secretly sneak into the country of Qi to find out what capable civil and military ministers there were in the country.Soon, this subordinate returned to the state of Zheng and presented a list to Duke Huan of Zheng.Duke Huan of Zheng was overjoyed. The next day, he held a meeting of ministers in the court hall to discuss the plan to attack the Kingdom of Qi. The courtiers of the Kingdom of Zheng did not know the details and hurriedly dissuaded them. Everyone believed that the time to attack the Kingdom of Qi was not yet ripe. Pushing the boat along the way, he took out the list submitted by his subordinates, read it out one by one in public, and falsely claimed: "These people are the civil servants and generals of the Qi Kingdom. I have bought them with a lot of money. When the time comes, they will cooperate internally and externally. I will destroy the country of Qi. Once my plan is realized, I will reward them with high officials and generous salaries, and give them all the land of the country of Qi as fiefdoms."

When Zheng Guo's courtiers heard this, most of them were skeptical.In order to show that he would never break his promise, Duke Huan of Zheng deliberately made a big splash. He built a very high altar on the outskirts of his capital, ordered his men to kill pigs and sheep, and held a very grand ceremony. In front of the people of the whole country, he burned incense and prayed: "I swear to the Tianmeng that once the country of Qi is conquered, I will reward those who help me, and I will never break my promise." Such a grand ceremony has already alarmed the spies of the State of Qi lurking in the State of Zheng.He didn't know that this was Zheng Huan's plan to kill with a knife, so he hurried back to the country and reported it to the king of the country.Hearing this, the king of the state of Qi was furious: "These people seem loyal, but they are all traitors; I was kept in the dark about how dare to betray the king after eating my salary." Put them on death row." The poor loyal ministers of the country of Qi were sent to prison unjustly in a daze, and soon they were all executed.

When Duke Huan of Zheng was in the country, he was overjoyed when he got the news he had been looking forward to for a long time: "Once these people die, I can lead the army to attack the country without hindrance." He immediately led the army to kill the country.After hearing the report, the king of the state of Qi turned pale with fright, and wanted to lead his troops to resist, but he looked at the whole court, and there was no one who could take up this important task. At this time, he realized that he had borrowed Zheng Guo's plan to kill with a knife , Ye Xi, it's too late to regret.Duke Huan of Zheng led a large army and drove straight in, easily destroying the country of Qi.

Through this example, we can see that killing with a borrowed knife is nothing more than killing with a fake hand. When you have no other way and the environment is limited, if you don’t do it yourself and ask others to carry out your intention to kill, this is killing with a borrowed knife. Of course, for individual stock investors, the purpose of using this trick is not to kill people, but to use the power of the second party to help them obtain income in stock investment and make up for their own lack of funds.Think back to the short-selling transaction we talked about earlier, even the stocks are borrowed from others. Isn't this borrowing the power of others to help oneself succeed? Isn't this "borrowing a knife to kill someone"!

However, if this strategy is applied to the competition between stock tycoons, it is not so simple.The world stock market is like a bloody battlefield. Every huge stock market shock produces winners and losers. The winners are happy and have a lot of hard currency in their pockets; own life.A stock dealer in Australia made an overly optimistic estimate of the world stock market in 1987. As a result, the world stock price plummeted that year, which turned him from a billionaire to a millionaire.The cruel reality caused him to have a nervous breakdown. In a fit of anger, the tycoon jumped off the top floor of a big hotel in Sydney?Fate to the west.And all of this is so logical and in line with nature. To manage stocks and win the world in the stock market, you can't do without money, let alone brains.From the day it was born, the western stock market has been linked with money, war, politics, economy and various other human behaviors, forming a colorful world of the stock market.As the famous British economist Keynes said: "The future is unpredictable." In the competition for the stock market, even the most powerful tycoon sometimes has to rely on the strength of others to overcome difficulties and defeat his opponents. .” In the 1960s, eight major companies in the United States formulated an ambitious plan: to occupy Hong Kong's financial sector, completely destroy the financial power of the Chinese and British in Hong Kong, seize the Hong Kong stock market, and gradually use it as a base to move to Hong Kong. Penetration in Southeast Asia.Undoubtedly, in order to clear the obstacles, the butcher's knives of the American stock tycoons first fell on the prestigious Hong Kong HSBC Bank. HSBC is a financial group composed of Chinese and British blood. It has a very strong foundation and social foundation in Hong Kong, and its leaders are also inextricably related to the local residents.Only by defeating HSBC can we secure financial power in Hong Kong.In this regard, the American financial community has long been prepared. They first bought a large number of HSBC shares, making the stock price double in a row. Then, the Americans sold all HSBC shares to the market within a few days, and at the same time caused a huge financial crisis. Rumor: HSBC is in bad shape, unable to get back the shares, etc.For a time, the stock price of HSBC plummeted like an ebb. If these stockpiles were not purchased, the reputation of HSBC would plummet, and even close the door to the danger of collapse.And just when HSBC was preparing to buy a large amount of stocks, many depositors from all over the country who did not know the truth were withdrawing money one after another. If they did not close their doors, their deposits would be in danger of being withdrawn. Faced with the challenge, HSBC is fighting back.They first spread the word to appease the people, emphasizing that HSBC will be responsible for every depositor. Then, they borrowed money everywhere, found old-connected accounts, and even asked Hong Kong triad organizations to come forward to "settle". However, the opponent is too powerful. Neither worked, and HSBC was not far from failure. "Mountains and rivers are full of doubts, and there is no way out, and there is another village." China's financial authority, the People's Bank of China, decided to support HSBC with a certain amount of loans for the purpose of stabilizing Hong Kong, and quickly instructed the personnel stationed in Hong Kong to quickly handle the account business .This move turned the situation into a sharp turn for the worse. Shareholders knew that this meant that all of China's capital was mortgaged to HSBC.The creditworthiness of the bank is beyond doubt.For a while, the stock price of HSBC Bank rose sharply, and the situation was reversed. In this regard, the American financial circles in Hong Kong could only feel sorry for themselves. They were forced to negotiate with HSBC to solve the problem. A thrilling stock market battle ended, and HSBC played a miraculous role in "killing people with a borrowed knife". Indeed, if you want to achieve various goals through stock trading, the key lies in the word "ruthless". As a person engaged in stock trading, you should first have this quality.It can strengthen courage, destroy the prestige of opponents, and enhance confidence.As an institution engaged in stock trading, the word "ruthless" is also needed, so that we can unite and defeat our opponents. Isn't "borrowing a knife to kill" a prominent manifestation of the word "ruthless"?