"New God Fallen? Or Never Existed?" topped the front page of The Wall Street Journal on the 11th.
The entire article described yesterday's events in the futures market with a mocking tone, and the outcome was obvious. Little Swift had indeed lived up to his word as a great benefactor, fulfilling his promise at the last moment and acquiring oil futures.
This proved his foolishness and Mr. Buffett's foresight. The average acquisition price of $20, coupled with the closing price of $18.92, resulted in a loss of about $1 per share, equivalent to 5%.
In just one day, the remaining $19 billion in funds shrank by another 5%. Consequently, The Wall Street Journal did not hesitate to declare the fall of Little Swift, the new god, or even more decisively, to state that no new deities ever existed in the financial market, directly negating all of Little Swift's previous achievements.
The entire Wall Street was naturally filled with laughter. Some rejoiced in his failure simply because they disliked Little Swift.
Others were jubilant because they had found a buyer for the oil futures they couldn't sell, successfully avoiding further losses. And some were simply happy.
Of course, many people also expressed in media interviews that although Little Swift had failed, he had demonstrated his noble character.
Knowing that oil futures had been falling for ten consecutive days, he had even sacrificed investors' interests at the last moment to prove his sincerity by acquiring oil futures. They believed this must have been a decision made after much internal struggle for Mr. Little Swift, and they expressed their sincere admiration.
After all, it was such a great deed to use clients' investment funds to practice one's integrity!
In short, these guys had thoroughly slandered Little Swift.
Thus, the saying about Little Swift's day of downfall naturally arose and began to circulate online and within circles.
However, most people dismissed it. "Just a black guy,呵呵!"
While their Wall Street colleagues were reveling, the customers of Western Mustang Fund were in despair.
Initially, seeing that Western Mustang Fund had jumped out of the oil futures pit, and even escaping from a fall at $28... Although they still lost money at this price, the losses were not substantial, and they could bear it.
And thinking that they would have lost even more, their moods suddenly improved considerably, leading to fewer people coming to cause trouble at the entrance.
Then, Little Swift entered at $20, only for it to fall again to less than $19. Their mentality instantly exploded. It was like falling twice in the same spot!
Many, filled with indignation, once again surrounded the building, and the number of people was even larger than before, with about two to three hundred people in a dense crowd, tightly encircling the entire building.
The leader, a black man in a red shirt, held up a sign and shouted, "Rnm! Little Swift, return the money!"
"Rnm, Little Swift, return the money!" A large crowd behind him echoed, while some tried to rush into the building, putting the building's security guards on high alert.
Frankly, if Little Swift hadn't paid them double wages and if each of them wasn't holding a long spear, they would have fled by now.
But even so, it was still not a pleasant situation, as more and more investors joined the protest march, and these people constantly pressured the defense line formed by the security guards.
Of course, someone had already called the police, and the US police had indeed arrived at the scene, but they were all watching from the sidelines, showing no intention of intervening.
After all, these people were storming a private office building, not the Capitol Building... Even if they were storming the Capitol Building, they probably wouldn't stop them.
They, the police, were there to work, not to risk their lives. There was no need to sacrifice their lives for a meager salary.
What's more, some important figures had secretly instructed them to give these protesters some leeway, as long as no lives were lost.
Meanwhile, Little Swift, sitting in his office, looked at the protesters on the monitor with a wry smile. Boss Huang stood beside him with a smile, and Hao Jianguo was also present.
Since joining Western Mustang Fund, Hao Jianguo had been highly valued by Huang He. Whenever Huang He visited the fund, he would always have Hao Jianguo by his side and frequently ask for his opinions.
"Boss, I think we should handle the protesters below, otherwise I'm afraid something big might happen!" Little Swift said.
"Alright, it wouldn't be good if a life was lost!" Huang He nodded. Although human lives in the US were actually cheap, losing a life at this moment would be a big problem.
"Then have you thought of how to deal with the crisis?" Huang He asked in return.
"I'll go down and persuade them myself. At worst, they can beat me up!" Little Swift said resolutely, seemingly prepared to be thrashed.
"If you go down like that, I won't be able to get you back alive!" Huang He rolled his eyes and then said to Hao Jianguo, "Jianguo, what do you think? Do you have any way to handle this crisis?"
"Yes!" Hao Jianguo said after some thought. "I think the most important thing right now is to appease the investors' emotions. Why don't I go down and talk to all the investors later? Tell them that in at most five days, oil futures prices will definitely rise again. If they don't rise..."
"It's not that simple. You're not Buffett, they won't believe what you say!" Huang He said with a smile.
"Then what if I'm willing to be their hostage?" Hao Jianguo gritted his teeth and said. "I'm at least a middle-level manager in the company. I'll go down and be their hostage, stay with them. If oil futures don't rise within the next five days, they can do whatever they want with me!"
"Oh!" Huang He's eyebrows twitched. "You trust Little Swift's prediction so much? The oil futures price continued to fall at the opening today, already down to $18.87 a barrel!"
"I believe in Mr. Little Swift's judgment!" Hao Jianguo said.
"Alas, believing too much in other people's judgment is not a good thing. You need to have your own judgment!" Huang He shook his head.
"Yes, I misspoke. I believe in my own judgment! I believe oil futures will rise within three days!" Hao Jianguo said.
"What's the reason for your judgment?" Huang He asked.
"Because everyone has fallen into a misconception. Most investors only see the continuous decline in oil prices, but they don't see that the market is actually in a state of supply-demand imbalance, with oil supply far less than oil orders!" Hao Jianguo said.
"In fact, since the war began last year, global daily oil production has remained around 48 million barrels, while daily oil demand is around 50 million barrels. There is a deficit of 2 million barrels, which has led to a continuous rise in oil futures prices since last year. Essentially, this is due to a simple supply-demand imbalance."
"However, because it coincided with the war at the time, everyone naturally attributed the reason to the outbreak of war, thus neglecting the fundamental supply-demand imbalance."
"Hence, when Assam was arrested, oil futures prices began to fall... This is because of the market's expectations based on Assam's arrest, which led many investors holding large oil inventory orders to sell their orders and put the existing oil on the market. This, combined with the daily new oil production, has instead resulted in a situation where oil supply exceeds demand, leading to a continuous decline in prices."
"Ultimately, our fund is also partly responsible. After all, we dumped oil futures orders worth $19 billion at once, which resulted in over 800 million barrels of oil appearing on the futures market, directly causing the supply to far exceed demand, further accelerating the sharp decline in oil prices, bringing it to the current situation of nearly $18 a barrel."
"Our Western Mustang Fund is like a reservoir. Normally, it stores 19 billion tons of water. When all this water is released one day, it will cause the originally drying small river to suddenly turn into a wild flood, submerging large areas of land, making the entire market seem to be in collapse."
"But this is all an illusion. OPEC has never announced anything worse. In fact, due to the recent sharp drop in oil prices, OPEC has announced a reduction in daily oil production by another 600,000 barrels, increasing the daily oil deficit from 2 million barrels to 2.6 million barrels, further widening the supply-demand imbalance."
"In addition, China's demand for oil is increasing. I noticed that China's oil demand this year has increased by a full 300,000 barrels of orders compared to the same period last year, further widening the gap to 2.9 million barrels."
"But these demand gaps are all insignificant in the face of our massive release of 800 million barrels of crude oil."
"However, yesterday, we used all our funds to repurchase crude oil. This is equivalent to instantly refilling the reservoir, which was previously empty."
"This water will not appear out of thin air. It must come from the daily regular flow and from other reservoirs releasing water. And this water is even more than our previous storage, reaching nearly 1 billion barrels of crude oil. Such a terrifying inventory has basically absorbed all the remaining stock in the market."
"The reason for the price decrease at the opening today is that the remaining stock in the market was purchased. However, the world's industries are waiting for oil every day, and their daily demand of nearly 51 million barrels of crude oil will not decrease. They will surely buy 50.3 million barrels of crude oil on the futures market today."
"But the current daily crude oil production is only 47.4 million barrels, and besides us, there probably isn't much reserve left in the market. Even if there is, because the price has approached the bottom line of $18 a barrel, those people probably won't sell crude oil easily anymore!"
"Therefore, I estimate that soon there will be people holding cash but unable to buy crude oil. Then, the only choice they can make is to buy more expensive oil by bidding up the price!" Hao Jianguo said with a smile.