Page 121
Page 121
Eun-bi's condition has improved considerably. She changed into normal casual clothes, and her powerful self-healing ability has allowed her to basically recover completely.
Once fully conscious, Eun-bi recalled the events of the previous night and suddenly felt a strange craving. Watching Chef Huo busy in the kitchen, she swallowed hard and went inside...
Suddenly.
Hawke was working when his cell phone rang.
Gan!
Hawke cursed inwardly, "Who is it?"
Do you want to die?
The call is connected.
Hawke asked coldly:
"what's up?"
"Young Master, people from Morgan Stanley have arrived. They want to talk to you about a matter of life and death for Lane Capital. I can't make the decision myself, so I had to call you."
“Morgan Stanley?” Hawke exclaimed in surprise. “Something that’s crucial to Lane Capital’s survival? What are they up to? Are they threatening me?”
“This… I don’t know,” Jordan said. “But young master, you need to come over as soon as possible, because they seem to be very confident and they don’t seem to have good intentions. Good intentions don’t come here.”
"Heh, I understand." Hawke sneered, "Then you keep them calm for now, I'll be right there."
Hawke hung up the phone and patted the somewhat infatuated Eunfi: "Something came up at the company, I have to go now."
Eunfi's misty, watery eyes flashed with a hint of bewilderment just before Hawke pulled away, as if she had been suddenly awakened from a beautiful dream.
Immediately, the haze faded quickly, leaving behind a hint of barely perceptible annoyance and a lingering physical tremor, as she stared intently at Hawke's rapidly turning back.
A moment later, she went into Hawke's bedroom, pulled out a shirt that Hawke had worn but hadn't washed, and inhaled deeply into it...
On the road.
Hawke's phone rang again.
Snapchat, information about the Kardashian sisters.
Open it up...
"Fuck!"
Hawke's eyes widened, and he immediately swore.
To put it simply... the three Kardashian sisters teamed up and sent Hawke a set of artistic photos that were far more revealing than just being naked. These three little bitches have really mastered Snapchat.
Lane Capital.
Hawke's car arrived downstairs quickly, and Jordan came down to meet him.
"What happened?"
Hawke asked.
"I knew it, young master, you haven't been watching the financial news much these past few days, have you?" Jordan said. "Right now, Morgan Stanley's hedge funds have gone bankrupt, losing nearly $50 billion..."
Hawke raised an eyebrow and said, "Losing this much? Recently, the only thing that could cause such a large corporation to lose this much in the market is probably Tony's kidnapping. Morgan Stanley is leveraging up to go long on Stark Group? They're really brave."
“Sigh,” Jordan sighed, “Before this happened, who could have imagined that Tony Stark would be attacked by terrorists? And with Tony Stark’s abilities, the Jericho missile he developed, and his personal involvement in arms sales in Afghanistan, was bound to be a huge success. Who could have imagined… Morgan Stanley would suddenly be fleeced!”
"Our shorting of Stark Industries was well-prepared, so we made a huge profit this time, with a floating profit of $72.51 billion. It is estimated that at least $70 billion of this $30 billion was directly snatched from Morgan Stanley."
To put it bluntly, the capital market is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there must be a loser. That's just how the world is. The winner takes all, and if you lose, don't complain.
"Since they're in the hedge fund business, accepting the consequences of their bets is a basic rule. Morgan Stanley is a veteran on Wall Street, so what are they trying to do now? Do they still want to take their money back from us?"
Hawke smiled.
Jordan shrugged and said, "I don't know, but I guess they're probably trying to squeeze some money out of us to make up for their losses."
"Heh, what are they dreaming of?" Hawke sneered. "They've already eaten someone else's flesh, and they expect them to spit it out? Let's go, let's go meet them!"
In the meeting room of Lane Capital.
Morgan Stanley's two vice presidents, Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth, met with Hawke.
Both men were dressed in bespoke suits with black silk ties, appeared to be around forty years old, had neatly combed hair, and wore expensive watches that looked very pricey.
The briefcase is exquisite, made of high-grade leather, with a gold chain and gold logo—no wonder it belongs to someone from a major investment bank.
"Young Master Ryan, it's a pleasure to meet you."
The two vice presidents were very enthusiastic towards Hawke and were about to shake his hand, showing no sign that Hawke had just robbed them of $20 billion from Morgan Stanley.
Hawke, however, made no move to shake hands and instead found a chair to sit down.
"Get to the point quickly. I have important matters to attend to at home and don't have time to chat with you."
The founder of JP Morgan was John Morgan, a prominent American banker who participated in the merger of General Electric, the consolidation of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's company, and the construction of many American railroads. He was a man who was particularly adept at financial maneuvering and founded a series of companies bearing his name, namely Morgan: JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc.
John Morgan founded the famous investment bank JP Morgan. When the Great Depression broke out in the 30s, the U.S. government believed that super-banks were the cause of the depression, so it passed a law prohibiting commercial banks from engaging in investment banking business at the same time.
Against this backdrop, Morgan Bank split into three: JP Morgan became a pure commercial bank, Morgan Stanley became an investment bank, and a third Morgan was responsible for overseas business, which was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1990.
JP Morgan at that time was the predecessor of JPMorgan Chase. It was merged into JPMorgan Chase in 2000 and no longer exists independently.
So it can be roughly seen that JP Morgan split into JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Today, Morgan Stanley is one of the five major investment banks on Wall Street, along with Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns.
It can be considered an incredibly sharp weapon that the United States has used to reap the benefits of the world through finance.
"Young Master Ryan, you really are a man of few words."
Hawke's unexpected move left Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth somewhat bewildered. After a moment, Keith Boone chuckled and spoke up:
"In that case, let's cut to the chase. The biggest short seller of Stark Industries during this period must be your Ryan Capital, Mr. Ryan, right?"
"So what if I am? So what if I'm not?" Hawke tilted his head and looked at the two of them, saying, "Are you trying to teach me how to do things?"
“No, of course not,” Scotty Ruth said. “But perhaps Mr. Hawke doesn’t know that our Morgan Stanley hedge fund has been liquidated and suffered significant losses recently. So out of curiosity, I checked out our counterparts, and by a bit of coincidence, I found out that your Ryan Capital is the one we bet against in the capital market this time.”
The claim of "unintentional" is definitely false; it was intentional. After all, a loss of $50 billion is not unbearable for Morgan Stanley as a whole, but for Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth, the responsibility is immense. Of course, they have to desperately try to recover the losses, otherwise, they will face dire consequences.
If they find a rival of equal standing, someone they can't afford to offend, then so be it. They can only swallow their losses, hold onto the grudge, and hope to get their money back by setting another trap for their rival next time. But if the rival is just a nobody... well, then sorry, they'll have to 'take eight bullets in the back and commit suicide,' and Morgan Stanley's losses will be recovered immediately.
That's how Wall Street works.
Then Morgan Stanley went to great lengths to find the source of the problem: Hawke & Lane Capital.
Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth were initially dismayed to learn that it was Ryan's son who was behind it. After all, the Ryan family was an old money family and not someone that could be easily taken advantage of. Morgan Stanley was very powerful, but if they clashed with the Ryan Group, only heaven knew who would win.
But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. The Morgan tycoon behind them sent some shocking news and was willing to give them a chance, which they cherished, so they came looking for him without hesitation.
"So what?" Hawke lit a cigarette, took a drag, exhaled a puff of smoke, and said, "Do you expect me to return your money?"
“Of course we can’t be that naive!” Keith Boone said with a smile. “We have no relation to you, Young Master Ryan, so how could we be worthy to negotiate such terms with you? We’ve come here simply to make friends with you, Young Master Ryan.”
"Make friends?" Hawke smiled faintly and said, "Heh, if it were the chairman of your Morgan Stanley, then that would be more like it."
You two vice presidents, nobodys, dare to be friends with me?
"Just because we helped you, Young Master Ryan, resolve a problem that wasn't too big or too small," Scotty Ruth said confidently.
“I don’t remember asking you two to do anything for me.” Hawke narrowed his eyes and said, “Or are you two here today to freeload?”
"Young Master Ryan, you've misunderstood."
Keith Boone smiled slightly and said:
"We really did help you solve a problem. For example... Ryan Capital suddenly decided to short Stark Industries on a large scale just before Tony Stark went to Afghanistan. The timing was too rushed. If the SEC found out, there's a 90% chance they'd find Ryan Capital guilty of insider trading, involving tens of billions of dollars. It might even put you, Mr. Ryan, on criminal charges. What we did was clear away all the clues for you, Mr. Ryan, so the SEC wouldn't target you. Wouldn't you call that a small favor?"
"Is this such a trivial matter worth asking me for a favor? Do you have any concrete evidence? If you don't have evidence, what can the SEC do to me? At most, I'll just apologize and pay a fine, and that'll be it."
Hawke scoffed and said:
"Besides, this kind of thing is standard practice on Wall Street, okay? If this counts as a crime, then when hasn't Morgan Stanley committed a crime? You don't need to cover up the evidence for me; you can just take a megaphone to Times Square and shout that I'm suspected of insider trading, I have no objection."
221 I have inside information, Morgan Stanley... is about to explode!
Hawke knew long ago that he couldn't hide the fact that he was shorting Stark Industries, because Lane Capital was a large company and its shorting of Stark Industries was also very large, making it the leading short seller. It was like an elephant trying to hide itself, but it was impossible to hide it.
Even if Jordan used numerous disguises and concealed himself before shorting the stock, making it difficult for others to find real evidence, some clues would still remain.
At this point, it comes down to who has more power and who has a stronger background.
If Morgan Stanley thinks that this will scare him into handing over the more than $70 billion he has swallowed, they are really delusional and have wasted their time.
Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth exchanged a glance, both feeling a bit uneasy. It seemed that this young master of the Ryan family had a reckless personality and wasn't easy to handle.
A little troublesome.
It's just a little troublesome.
If that were all they had, Keith Boone and Scottie Ruth certainly wouldn't have dared to approach Hawke so casually.
If that's all there is to it, and they dare to report Ryan for financial manipulation and irregularities, then Morgan Stanley will probably have to accept Ryan's report as well. There will definitely be retaliation between the two sides, resulting in heavy losses for both. It's not worth it. Why bother?
Whoever created the figurines has no descendants?
So the two of them actually came with their real trump cards.
Because the information they received from the Morgan tycoon behind them was extremely explosive!
Scottie Ruth wore a fake smile:
“Without concrete evidence, it seems the SEC can’t do anything to you, Mr. Ryan, but… what about the Roxon Group?”
Jordan, who was listening from the sidelines, had a slight change in expression.
If he hadn't been at the helm of Lane Capital for so long, handling billions of dollars and having developed a certain composure, he might have been paralyzed with fear.
"What do you mean?" Hawke understood immediately, a smile playing on his lips.
Scottie Ruth's face lit up with a smile:
"It is common knowledge that the Roxon Texas chemical plant explosion caused its market value to plummet. Roxon happened to know this. Before the explosion, a mysterious short seller appeared in the stock market, shorting Roxon. Therefore, they suspected that someone deliberately caused the explosion to short the company and make a lot of money in dollars."
"So Roxson commissioned us, the big investment banks on Wall Street, to find the source of that short position."
"If the Roxon Texas chemical plant explosion is an unsolved case that Wall Street can't find out anything about, then the fact that there was an additional short-selling fund when the Roxon San Francisco site exploded has inadvertently led us to discover a clue. It's not much, but it has given us a directional suspicion."
"Hahahaha!" Keith Boone suddenly burst into laughter. "These are all baseless accusations, clearly meant to smear you, Young Master Ryan. None of us would believe them, so the two of us covered it up for you. Of course, it's not a big favor, since there's no real evidence. What can the SEC do to you, Young Master Ryan? But... if Roxson finds out, things might get a bit complicated."
met free