Chapter 253: Black Monday

Two days later, that is, October 19 at 9:25 a. m., Chen Mo's group arrived punctually at the Merrill Lynch trading floor.

He opened the Bloomberg Terminal, Chen Mo sat on the sofa, staring fixedly at the screen.

Jimi and Ahua sat beside Chen Mo, equally tense as they waited for the market to open.

Chen Mo had already greeted them earlier; today would be a day that decided their fate.

Henry and Pete stood behind the few people, waiting for Chen Mo's orders.

9:30 a. m., the exchange opened.

After a decline last Friday, the market opened lower today as soon as trading began.

Henry said, "Boss, should we take advantage of the low open to close positions and lock in profits? Otherwise, if the market rebounds, it'll be too late."

Chen Mo's eyes were fixed on the numbers on the Bloomberg Terminal, unblinking.

"Don't rush, wait!"

"Boss, you've already made enough profit; you can pull out in time."

"Shut up!" Chen Mo turned and shouted at Henry, "If you dare to speak again, I'll make you unable to speak forever!"

"You'd better understand who you're working for, or I won't pay you a single cent of commission!"

Chen Mo could somewhat guess Henry's little thoughts.

Henry had long seen from Chen Mo's operations that a market crash would occur; afterwards, each time he advised Chen Mo to close positions, his only aim was to get Chen Mo to leave the market early and not take too much profit.

Every penny Chen Mo made from the crash came from ordinary investors losing everything.

But Chen Mo wouldn't care about those.

If the crash was destined to happen, who makes that money isn't important! Short sellers aren't just him.

How the people of Meiliguo live—what does it have to do with me!

If it weren't for still needing Henry to work for him, Chen Mo would want to kill him right now—so annoying.

Half an hour later, the Dow Jones Index was still falling, and the speed of decline was increasing.

Chen Mo knew this meant someone could no longer sit still and wanted to liquidate and flee.

"Pete, call the exchange and ask what's happening there."

Chen Mo now couldn't be bothered to assign Henry any work.

"Okay, Boss." Pete responded and quickly walked toward the phone.

Not long after, Pete came back and said, "? Boss, the exchange is seeing a huge volume of sell orders, with almost all stocks falling."

Hearing that reply, Chen Mo's lips curled slightly.

"Good. Contact the exchange every five minutes; no action needed, just keep our phone line open."

"Understood, Boss."

Time passed second by second, and the Dow Jones Index continued to drop.

However, the decline wasn't fast; the S&P 500 had only fallen to 273 points, far short of Chen Mo's expectation.

Chen Mo began to feel nervous again.

As time went on, Chen Mo grew more nervous.

He couldn't afford not to be nervous; such an opportunity comes only once in several years.

The time reached eleven o'clock.

Numbers on the Bloomberg Terminal began to show a clear change.

The Dow Jones Index produced a rapid decline fluctuation.

Chen Mo had been watching the Bloomberg Terminal and immediately noticed this fluctuation.

Chen Mo knew this was a large sell order appearing in the market, and also the trigger for today's crash.

"Here it comes!" Chen Mo couldn't help shouting.

The others, hearing Chen Mo's shout, couldn't help but look over.

Sure enough, after that fluctuation, the Dow Jones Index's downward trend could no longer be stopped.

The programed trading of institutional portfolio insurance had been triggered; now the program constantly generates large volumes of sell orders in stock index futures.

These sell orders will heavily impact the spot market.

The first wave of the crash has begun!

"Boss, a large number of sell orders have appeared in the market, and the exchange is already starting to descend into chaos."

Pete's report made Chen Mo even more excited.

"Chaos, chaos is great! Only with chaos can it fall more!"

"Jimi, contact the hotel and have lunch delivered; we'll eat here at noon!"

"Sure!" Jimi also became a bit excited.

Although he hadn't carefully calculated how much he could earn, just seeing Chen Mo's demeanor told him they'd make a killing this time.

"Mo Ge, how much money can you make this time?" Gang Sheng and Qiu Di couldn't help asking.

"Heh heh, even if I cash out now, my net worth will at least double." Chen Mo said proudly, "By tomorrow, I'll make even more."

At noon, in the trading room, several people ate meat heartily; well, no alcohol, they'd still have to work this afternoon.

While they were enjoying the meal, Yuehan Feishi arrived.

"Mr. Chen, what exactly did you do?" Yuehan Feishi came in and immediately adopted an accusatory attitude.

Chen Mo wiped his hands, stood up, and said, "Yuehan, what do you mean by that?"

"The exchange is already in chaos, the crash has erupted! Don't say this has nothing to do with you!"

Chen Mo looked at Yuehan and shrugged: "Of course this has nothing to do with me. My account opening was handled by you; you should be able to check what operations I performed."

"Then why do all your operations look as if you knew today's crash would happen!"

"Luck? Yeah, just luck!" Chen Mo said, joking as if convincing himself, "Perhaps my luck is just better."

"You... you're just a devil!" Yuehan Feishi was left speechless by Chen Mo.

Seeing Yuehan Feishi a little angry, Chen Mo collected his joking expression and spoke solemnly: "Yuehan Feishi, in fact this stock crash really has nothing to do with me."

So, instead of arguing with me here, you'd better hurry to find your company's senior management to discuss this, see how this happened and how it should be resolved.

After all, if the stock crash keeps worsening, your company will also go bankrupt.

Chen Mo didn't want to strain relations with Merrill Lynch, after all his account is opened with their company.

Once the relationship breaks down, Merrill Lynch might withhold his money, and he'd have to spend a long time in litigation, which would be not worth it.

After lunch, the market situation shown on the Pengbo terminal showed a new change.

The decline continued, but trading volume was decreasing.

The large sell orders automatically generated by the program triggered panic selling among ordinary investors, causing the sell orders to increase further, with no one taking them over.

This is the second wave of the stock crash.

Now the exchange is completely in chaos.

Even though Chen Mo had Merrill Lynch's senior trading privileges, Pete's several phone calls couldn't get through.

Chen Mo was still waiting, waiting for the Dow Jones index to go lower, waiting for the S&P 500 index price to keep falling.

The time finally arrived at 3:50, with only about half an hour left until market close.

At this moment, the S&P 500 index had already fallen to 219 points.

"Pete, Henry, immediately call the exchange, close out 30% of positions, first lock in profits."

"Yes, BOSS."

Pete and Henry immediately sprang into action.

The phone kept being dialed, busy, dialed, busy.

In the tense atmosphere, after who knows how many dial attempts, the phone finally got through.

Chen Mo's first wave of harvesting began.