Chapter 1156: The financial landscape once again covers a continent
While Bright Fund was making a big splash in the UK acquiring HSBC Holdings, it was secretly also buying up shares in Barclays Bank.
Barclays Bank's market value had long since fallen below 4 billion pounds after being in the doldrums for so long.
The Bright Fund first went dark and then went public, and in total acquired a combined 14.5% of the stock market, spending a total of £497 million.
George Berkeley wanted to acquire more shares, but when he acquired more than 11% of the shares, it was discovered by the Rothschild family.
The Rothschild family then immediately invested capital to grab the shares, preventing the Bright Fund from increasing its shareholding to more than 15%, and unfortunately missing the third director's seat.
However, the initial plan of acquiring 10% of the shares and two seats on the board was achieved.
The Rothschild family was furious when they learned that the Bright Fund had entered Barclays Bank, but there was nothing they could do about it. They could only let it happen for the time being and wait for an opportunity to get rid of the Bright Fund in the future.
Xia Yu, who was far away in Hong Kong, could not help but laugh out loud in his office after learning the details.
As for Standard Chartered Bank, the plan was also going very smoothly.
Standard Chartered Bank of South Africa is the largest commercial bank in South Africa and the largest commercial bank in Africa.
However, due to the economic backwardness of Africa, Standard Chartered Bank of South Africa's total assets are actually only 5.4 billion US dollars, and its market value before the crisis was only 320 million US dollars after being converted into US dollars.
After being caught in the vortex of the Latin American sovereign debt crisis, Standard Chartered Bank of South Africa's stock price was cut in half.
Standard Chartered already held a 39% stake in Standard Bank of South Africa, so it was not difficult to acquire the stakes of other shareholders.
When Standard Bank of South Africa's market value fell below 150 million US dollars, Standard Chartered acquired it at a premium for efficiency.
In the end, it cost 98.6 million US dollars to privatise Standard Bank of South Africa and make it a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered.
In this way, Xia Yu's hand also reached into South Africa, the most developed country in Africa.
Asia, North America, Europe and Africa, all have representative banks.
Although there are no representative banks in Oceania and South America, whether it is HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland or Standard Chartered Bank, they all have branches on these two continents, and together they also have a significant influence.
...
Let's talk about Hong Kong.
After half a month of bombardment-style publicity, the news that the Hong Kong Futures Exchange is about to be reformed and launch four major commodity futures has not only spread throughout Southeast Asia and the island countries, but also to Europe and the United States.
There are hundreds of financial institutions in Hong Kong, and at least half of them are branches of international financial institutions. None of them wants to miss out on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange.
In the past half month, these financial institutions have not only carefully studied the rules of the Hong Kong Futures Exchange and the information on the four major futures, but have also done one thing above all else.
That is, they have exchanged currencies!
They have exchanged all currencies such as the US dollar, British pound and Japanese yen for Hong Kong dollars.
This is because the only currency traded on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange is the Hong Kong dollar.
According to statistics from the Monetary Authority, in just less than half a month, the total value of all foreign currencies in Hong Kong increased by more than 3.2 billion US dollars!
This means that in just less than half a month, more than 3.2 billion US dollars of foreign capital flowed into Hong Kong.
Some of this capital was temporarily left in accounts, ready to enter the futures market.
Others, having analysed the long-term upward trend of the Hong Kong stock market, were directly invested in the stock market, directly stimulating the daily trading volume of the Hong Kong stock market to break through 2 billion Hong Kong dollars again.
Before long, it was November 15th.
This day was also a Monday.
Not far from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a grand ceremony was held at the Hong Kong Futures Exchange.
The ceremony was no less grand than the inauguration of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Xia Yu once again appeared to support the Hong Kong Futures Exchange.
Then, amidst much anticipation, the Hong Kong Futures Exchange opened for business, launching natural rubber futures – the HK101 futures contract, Hang Seng Index futures, Nikkei 225 stock index futures and London FTSE 100 stock index futures.
The natural rubber HK101 contract is supported by a group of Southeast Asian rubber giants such as the Kepong Group. The Futures Exchange stipulates that one lot is ten tons, the minimum unit of change is five Hong Kong dollars per ton, and the minimum margin for trading is 10%.
On 15 November, the spot price of natural rubber was 10,920 Hong Kong dollars per tonne after conversion.
Because there are costs such as delivery fees, inspection fees, storage fees, transfer fees, transaction fees, capital borrowing costs, and value-added tax, the futures contract price is lower than the spot price.
The first order was placed by Jiuding Securities Company, and the price of the buy order was HK$9,645 per tonne. The first contract was 100 lots, worth nearly HK$10 million.
If the price of natural rubber futures subsequently rises above this price, Jiuding Securities Company will naturally make a profit; if it falls below this price, it will naturally suffer a loss.
The total price of a Hang Seng Index futures contract is the latest contract point value of the Hang Seng Index futures multiplied by 50 times HK$, with a minimum change of 0.1 points.
The trading rules for Hang Seng Index futures are as follows: the Hang Seng Index futures contract covers the current month, the next month and the following two months, for a total of four months. Trading hours are the same as those for the rubber stock market. The commission margin rate for Hang Seng Index futures is 9%, the trading margin rate is 6%, and the handling fee is 0.05%.
The trading rules for Nikkei 225 stock index futures and FTSE 100 stock index futures are the same as those for Hang Seng Index futures contracts.
However, because the Nikkei 225 stock index has more than 8,200 points, the highest of the three indices, this also means that the cost of each Nikkei 225 stock index futures contract is also the highest, worth more than 400,000 Hong Kong dollars.
After the launch of the four major futures commodities, capital that had been waiting for a long time quickly poured in.
Compared to the natural rubber hk101 contract, trading in the other three financial stock index futures is more active.
Of the three futures contracts, Hang Seng Index futures has the lowest trading volume, as the number of long positions far exceeds that of short positions, making it difficult to increase trading volume. This also reflects the general bullishness of investors towards the Hong Kong stock market.
The contract with the highest trading volume is the Nikkei 225 stock index futures, which is trading for the first time.
One hour after the market opened, the trading volume of Nikkei 225 stock index futures reached 130 lots, with a transaction amount of over 50 million Hong Kong dollars.
The trading volume of the FTSE 100 stock index futures contract reached more than 37 million Hong Kong dollars.
The trading volume of Hang Seng Index futures was more than 16 million Hong Kong dollars.
In one hour, the total trading volume of contracts on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange exceeded 100 million Hong Kong dollars!
The trading volume in one hour reached one-twenty-fifth of the annual trading volume of the Hong Kong futures market last year!
This set a record for the Hong Kong futures market!
Moreover, that day, due to the movement of the Nikkei 225 stock index in the island country's stock market, the price of the Nikkei 225 stock index futures on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange fluctuated very rapidly, further stimulating trading volume.
As soon as the Nikkei 225 stock index rose, financial institutions on the Hong Kong Futures Exchange immediately placed buy orders at higher prices.
Although futures contracts specify a time period, this is only a time limit, and any institution can close out positions at any time during trading hours.
Therefore, some institutions with long positions will immediately sell the contract in the short term to pocket the profits when they see a profit.
When the afternoon session ends, the staff of the Hong Kong Futures Exchange immediately calculate the data and report it to Wang Qi, who then reports it to Xia Yu again.
The total turnover of the natural rubber hk101 contract that day reached more than 149 million Hong Kong dollars.
The total turnover of Hang Seng Index futures was more than 132 million Hong Kong dollars.
The total turnover of FTSE 100 stock index futures was more than 314 million Hong Kong dollars.
The total turnover of Nikkei 225 stock index futures was more than 646 million Hong Kong dollars.
Add the trading volume of several other existing futures commodities.
The total turnover of the Hong Kong Futures Exchange that day was more than 1.263 billion Hong Kong dollars!
The daily trading volume was equivalent to about half of the total annual trading volume of the Hong Kong futures market last year!
The Hong Kong Futures Exchange charged a transaction fee of more than HK$623,000.
That evening, the results sheet, which looked very simple and ordinary in Europe and the United States but very eye-catching in Hong Kong, was announced and interpreted by Global TV, causing a sensation throughout Hong Kong.
Before 9:30 pm, Xia Yu received non-stop congratulatory calls...