Chapter 3699: A Good Opportunity to Make Money

The Left Army Governor-General's Office immediately intercepted this piece of news.

The current Left Army Governor-General's Office is essentially a regional warlord state, although on the surface it still obeys the Anti-Qing Association's control, but behind the scenes, its petty maneuvers are increasing.

For the Left Army Governor-General's Office, over these years, by underreporting production in the energy sector, it has indeed profited handsomely through embezzlement, but making money is addictive, and the Governor-General of the Left Army, Wu Yongzhen, finds his greatest motivation each day upon waking to be how much more money he can make for himself.

Recently, oil prices have surged continuously, allowing Wu Yongzhen to reap enormous profits; he is like an investor who bought stocks that keep hitting the daily limit—clearly already profitable, yet still constantly anticipating the next peak.

The core members of the Left Army Governor-General's Office are all his relatives and direct descendants, naturally aligning closely with his pace; when they learned from Rachel that the Rothschild family was about to leverage the Strait of Hormuz to drive up oil prices, they immediately realized an opportunity had arrived.

The crude oil market is the world's largest single-commodity market; even slight fluctuations in oil prices can bring immense wealth to some and utter ruin to others, so when this priceless piece of news reached Wu Yongzhen's ears, besides feeling excited, he immediately began researching how he should exploit this opportunity.

The simplest method is to first halt shale oil shipments, wait for prices to rise, then sell—this approach involves no leverage, and the profit equals the price increase multiplied by one's total volume, meaning the extra earnings are limited in scope.

If one adds a bit of leverage, one can, while halting shipments, first purchase some spot oil orders from certain American petroleum distributors, since market movements are swift, so once one secures the order, one need not actually transport or store the oil, but can sell high and profit again, somewhat akin to short-selling.

If one's risk tolerance is even greater, one can inject capital into the futures market, max out leverage by going long—this yields the highest profit margin, with tenfold returns possible, but the risk is also extremely high.

Do not be misled by having insider information; this fully leveraged strategy remains perilous.

Because if the Rothschild family wishes to control oil price increases, they will absolutely not simply push prices up in a straight line, letting them surge relentlessly; instead, they will act like a rising tide, with prices repeatedly rising and falling, yet overall pushing the price higher.

The reason for this constant fluctuation is to shake off those aboard who are too light, unbuckled, and eager to hitch a ride, lest they freeload on the market conditions they have created.

This tactic is also quite simple: the Rothschild family has ample funds, so for them, there is essentially no risk of liquidation; they could even dare to let their floating losses in the futures market exceed 100%, just as in the past when the oil market directly drove prices into negative territory—ordinary individuals and ordinary conglomerates would have already been liquidated under such conditions, but the Rothschild family fears nothing, for they have plenty of money to stabilize their positions, waiting until everyone else is wiped out before sweeping the field.

If someone uses fivefold leverage, then merely temporarily suppressing oil prices by 20% would liquidate that person completely.

This strategy resembles dragging everyone underwater while carrying an oxygen tank, waiting until others have all drowned, then slowly surfacing.

Therefore, if one merely knows that oil prices will be pushed up by the Rothschild family and then recklessly applies leverage to charge into the futures market, one is very likely unable to endure the volatile conditions until the clouds clear and the mist disperses.

In financial markets, the Rothschild family has always been a super crocodile; their tactics are always to devour the large and spit out the small, so if one wishes to profit alongside them in the futures market, one's scale must be very small—small enough not to attract their attention; otherwise, once they detect others in the market seeking to hitch a ride for big profits, they will certainly first devise ways to consume those hitchhikers.

Thus, the third option becomes rather awkward: investing heavily brings high risk, while low risk means insufficient scale.

After much deliberation, Wu Yongzhen decided to adopt the second approach.

That is, to proceed more steadily—avoiding the futures market altogether, instead stockpiling his own production capacity while using modest leverage offline to accumulate more chips in hand; once prices rise, he will directly liquidate his own goods together, quickly profiting from the price spread, such that even with price fluctuations, there is no risk of liquidation.

Accordingly, Wu Yongzhen immediately summoned his confidant, Du Heng, a secretary of the Left Army Governor-General's Office, and instructed him: "Du Heng, go visit the Getty family, meet Rachel's mother, and you must negotiate several matters with her."

Du Heng immediately replied respectfully: "Governor-General, please command!"

Wu Yongzhen smiled with self-satisfaction: "First, have her greet her husband; we previously conducted private shipments to them, so suspend that business for now, and reopen it after some time; second, have her help us connect with another shell company of ours, see if we can purchase a batch of spot crude oil from her husband's family, but tell them clearly that I can pay in full upfront, though delivery cannot occur temporarily—let them hold the oil for us for ten days, I will pay appropriate warehousing fees, and I will take delivery after ten days."

The situation at the Strait of Hormuz changes rapidly—today talks, tomorrow fighting, the day after tomorrow talks again—so the Rothschild family will certainly achieve their goal of raising oil prices within ten days.

Wu Yongzhen clearly understood in his heart that although this is war, in this kind of warfare there is essentially no such thing as victory or defeat logic—only trading logic; the trader is never aiming to delist a stock, but merely hopes the stock becomes his tool: he makes the price rise, it rises; he makes it fall, it falls; thus he can design this stock into a financial shredder, where any large stone entering will be crushed to powder.

Currently, the Strait of Hormuz is the shredder controlling international oil prices; once this machine starts operating, retail investors' money inside will undergo repeated shocks, ultimately leaving nothing— to crush retail investors as thoroughly as possible, the market's volatility frequency must be very high, so a single market movement will peak at most within ten days.

Du Heng said without hesitation: "Governor-General, rest assured, I will certainly deliver the message."

Wu Yongzhen reminded him further: "By the way, there is one more matter: you must tell Rachel's mother that the information Rachel brought back must absolutely not be disclosed to the Getty family; once they know, I will have no chance to borrow chips."

Du Heng nodded: "Understood, Governor-General, rest assured."

Wu Yongkang waved his hand: "Alright, go—early departure, early return."

"Subordinate obeys orders!"

After Du Heng finished speaking and was about to leave, Wu Yongkang suddenly took issue with something, called Du Heng back, and said: "By the way, where has the Second Elder been these past two days?"