Chapter 75: Second Thought (Part 1)

The Rock Restaurant is the self-operated restaurant of the Sky Tower Building. At noon, Zhou Ming and Lin Muqing arrived at the Rock Restaurant for lunch. They had just finished a meeting with Tong Gang, Li Cheng, and Ilbeidov. The reason they did not go together was that they needed to sort out their thoughts from the meeting.

Lin Muqing ordered two dishes with a very domestic flavour for Zhou Ming, but despite this, she still felt that Zhou Ming seemed to be frowning. So Lin Muqing couldn't help but ask worriedly, 'Zhou Ming, isn't the situation in the Middle East developing according to your expectations? Why are you so worried now? Weren't you always the most confident?'

Zhou Ming gave a wry smile in response. Logically, he should indeed be confident, not because the situation in the Middle East has been developing as he expected, but because according to his past life memories, the situation should have developed this way.

On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the Gulf War broke out. On the same day, the United States put all its military bases near the Gulf on level-1 combat alert. The US Operation Desert Shield then began, and the US began to urgently send reinforcements to the Gulf region and set up a defence line to prevent Iraq from continuing to invade Saudi Arabia, while secretly formulating the 'Desert Storm' plan for immediate action.

Afterwards, the United States and the Soviet Union reached a consensus, demanding that Iraq unconditionally withdraw its troops from Kuwait and fully restore Kuwait's sovereignty, legitimate regime and territorial integrity, while ceasing all arms supplies and military assistance to Iraq. On the same day, the Arab League also demanded that Iraq immediately withdraw its troops and jointly passed Resolution 661, which condemned Iraq and imposed economic sanctions on it.

After the US Secretary of State and the Iraqi Foreign Minister met in Geneva, but both sides believed that there was no room for compromise and the talks did not achieve any results, the multinational force led by the United States began bombing Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and the Gulf War officially broke out.

This is Zhou Ming's memory of the situation in the Gulf. Although Zhou Ming does not remember the timing of various war events very clearly, one thing he is certain of is that such a process will still happen. Even with his own influence and Robert Adams' interference, the conspiracy plan of the two major consortia is unlikely to be fundamentally changed due to the wilfulness of a young person, even if this young person is an important figure in the Adams family.

In that case, with the continued deterioration of the situation in the Middle East and the subsequent outbreak of the Gulf War, a sustained rise in oil prices was inevitable. As far as I can remember, the price of oil once broke through the US$40 mark and reached a high of US$45. This was not after the new millennium, when US$40 crude oil prices were already astronomical, because the price had risen from US$15 before the Gulf War.

In other words, if you place a buy order for crude oil at the right time before the war, then you can reap twice the profit after the war, just as you did before the stock market crash in Hong Kong.

If you just came from the mainland, were just born again, or didn't know so much, you would definitely place an order and wait for the money to be credited. But the problem is, you are no longer the person you were three years ago.

Zhou Ming still remembers that time well. He knew nothing, only the exact time of Black Friday, and dragged along the 400,000 yuan he had borrowed, and together with Lin Muqing, arrived early at Gangcheng, waiting for Black Monday to happen.

Now that he thinks about it, Zhou Ming feels that he was really fearless in his ignorance at that time. He didn't understand why Black Monday happened or what was behind it, and so he just foolishly gambled away all his assets. He never even thought about what would happen if Black Monday didn't happen.

But there was nothing he could do at the time. He was poor and had nothing, and even if he had to start over again, he would still take that gamble.

But the situation is very different now. I have a huge amount of assets in my hands, and even if I do nothing, I can still live a carefree life and be a happy spendthrift. Therefore, there is no need for me to gamble like this. Right now, I am using the Gulf War to speculate on crude oil futures, but I am only doing it because I don't want to be a fool for not taking advantage of opportunities when I have the means. I just want to make my assets in the United States grow even more. This is not the desperate gamble I was three years ago.

More importantly, I learned some of the inside stories behind the Gulf War.

First, the Gulf War did not happen by accident, as I originally thought, but was a conspiracy carefully planned by American capital. Second, I offended Robert, an important figure in the consortium, and he also had the ability to control and influence things to some extent.

This is very important, because after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Gulf War did not break out immediately, but waited for four months.

These four months were used by the US government to coordinate relations with the rest of the world and prepare for war. Who knows if it wasn't also used to allow capital to adjust to the market? Although Zhou Ming couldn't remember the specifics, he clearly remembered that after the outbreak of the war in Kuwait, the price of oil had fluctuated, and there had even been a period of negative growth.

Perhaps for most people, as long as the general market for crude oil prices is rising, that's enough. Zhou Ming would have thought the same three years ago, but with three years of experience, especially after studying at Harvard for half a year, Zhou Ming knows better. A true investor would never look at it this way. Besides, the futures market will never look kindly on such lazy investors.

It's a simple truth that in the capital market, whether it goes up and down first or up and down second, the result for investors is ultimately a loss.

Due to the problem of closing prices in the securities market, the real-time price is not as obvious. However, the futures and foreign exchange markets have real-time prices, which means that if the price goes up, you will make money immediately; if it goes down, your money will disappear immediately.

It is for this reason that when investing in futures and foreign exchange, ordinary investors usually set aside a lot of reserves to deal with such situations. Otherwise, if the price fluctuates dozens of times a day, any investor will lose a lot of money. However, Zhou Ming invested all his capital this time because the time had been determined in advance, and did not set aside any reserves. In case of fluctuations, he would not know how much money he would lose.

Of course, he could have set aside a reserve like the other investors, so that he could deal with price fluctuations. But if he had done that, why would he have needed to find Tong Gang, Li Cheng and Irbekov to invest with him? He could have just prepared a few million or tens of millions of dollars and invested it himself. After all, based on the price increases and some operational measures, he would have no problem making tens of millions of dollars.

Since they have already been asked to come over, they must invest all the capital. One must know that even in charity work, one strives to maximise benefits, not to mention that this is serious speculation. One cannot be more merciful than charity, right?

However, someone must have dug a pit in front of him, waiting for him, and the problem has become more complicated.

Yesterday, when negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait broke down, Zhou Ming deliberately invested 10 million against the market trend when the entire market began to panic. Zhou Ming did this to test the waters, but Zhou Ming's test of the waters was not to test the entire oil futures market, but to test Robert's ability to influence the market.

It was because of the final result that Zhou Ming could not help but have an extra layer of concern, which made him seem very unsure of himself.

With all these complicated thoughts, Zhou Ming finally let out a long sigh and said, 'Sister Muqing, I would like to be more confident, but I can't not consider these issues. What's in front of us now is already so complicated, not to mention how many problems we don't know about behind the scenes.'

'So that's why you just said that, Zhou Ming?' Lin Muqing asked.

Zhou Ming nodded helplessly and said, 'Yes, we can't just keep going down the same path. We always need to change our thinking when we encounter problems.'

...

Meanwhile, in another restaurant, Tong Gang and Li Cheng were also sitting together discussing the problem. Their brows were knitted together, and the food in front of them had hardly been touched, showing that what they were thinking about was not an easy matter.

'Brother Tong, do you really think that things are as serious as what little brother Zhou Ming said?' Li Cheng asked.

Tong Gang shook his head and said, 'It's hard to say. After all, until now, what Zhou Ming has said is all his speculation, and there is nothing to prove this speculation. Even the sudden drop in oil futures prices yesterday is hard to say that it was specifically targeted at him or had been set long ago. After all, the fact that an immature young man can influence such a big plan is inherently too unreasonable a setting. I believe that the Adams family has been able to exist for more than 300 years, and it shouldn't be like this.'

Tong Gang suddenly changed the subject after saying this, and continued, 'But there is one thing. Do you remember what I said when we first commented on Zhou Ming? We believe in Zhou Ming as a person, and we believe he will definitely bring us benefits.'

'So we should trust him completely? At least on this issue,' Li Cheng asked.

'You can't trust someone without doubting them. Although Zhou Ming is not technically our subordinate, even if we are just collaborators, I think we should trust him, otherwise we might as well just disband and go our own way,' Tong Gang said.

Li Cheng nodded silently: 'I understand, Brother Tong, I will explain this to the company's board of directors.'

Tong Gang waved his hand and said, 'No need. I think it's better if I explain this personally. After all, this time the company has a lot of temporary investment customers, and only what I say will be most convincing.'

...

Almost next door to Tong Gang and Li Cheng, Irbedov was sitting there talking on the phone in Russian. There were also a few Northern Russians sitting there, watching Irbedov talk on the phone without eating.

One of these people was a very young North Russian named Vanyusha, whom Irbedov had brought with him from North Russia, but because he was too young, Irbedov did not bring him into the meeting room.

At the moment, Vanyusha was sitting over there leisurely cutting his own steak while seemingly absent-mindedly listening to Irbedov's phone call.

'Yes, that's what Mr. Zhou Ming said today. He is worried that direct investment will create certain risks, so his suggestion is to think in a different way. I personally think that his idea is very good. Tong Gang and Li Cheng over there are both Chinese, and I believe they will also support this idea. So I'm calling you now to give you a way out. Haven't you always said that you missed the last opportunity? Well, now the second chance is here, and I've called you first. Can you seize it? You see for yourself.'

After saying this, Irbedov hung up the phone, saying angrily, 'These damned guys, they want to make money but are afraid of the risks. What a bunch of spineless bastards!'

Vanyusha, who had been concentrating on wrestling with the steak, only then looked up and said to Irbedov, 'What you said is absolutely right, they are all a bunch of greedy demons, but in my opinion, that Mr. Zhou Ming from China is the real devil, because he can perfectly manipulate the desires of these demons.'

Irbeldov shook his head and said, 'Wanyusha, you're wrong. What's really impressive about Mr. Zhou Ming is his ability to restrain his desires. Even though the situation in the Middle East is dire, he was able to give up oil and think in a different way. This is most rare.'

'But teacher, what if Mr. Zhou Ming guesses wrong?' Wanyusha asked another question.