Chapter 6: Growing Leeks in the Market

Su Yue stared at his self-operated fund account, feeling quite pleased after his trading permissions were raised. He now had access to nearly 10 million in funds, which gave him more flexibility and agility for his future trading operations, allowing him to capture more market profits.

Of course, deep down, he thought that his master's approach of directly adjusting everyone's account trading permissions was a bit too forceful and rough. It might lead to dissatisfaction among some team members and affect the overall cohesion of the trading team.

"Junior Brother, what do you think Sister Liling means?" Fang Wanqing looked at her trading account, noticing that her trading permissions had been increased by 10 percentage points. Curious and puzzled, she sent Su Yue a private message on WeChat, "You should understand your master better. What do you think Sister Liling is up to?"

Su Yue pondered for a moment and replied, "I don't know. How about... you ask our master?"

"How can I ask about this?" Fang Wanqing was a bit speechless and paused before continuing, "Forget it, Sister Liling must have her reasons. I shouldn't guess blindly. Let's focus on monitoring the market!"

Su Yue replied with a simple 'okay' and then closed the chat window, shifting his focus back to the market trends.

At this moment, the market had completed the opening call auction. The stocks he was particularly interested in were 'Fushun Special Steel,' which had opened nearly 5 points higher after hitting the limit up yesterday, showing active buying interest and trading volume, and 'Northern Navigation,' which was hovering around the flat price and hadn't attracted significant buying interest yet, resulting in lower trading volume during the opening call auction.

"Not bad, 'Fushun Special Steel' has opened nearly 5 points higher." Fang Wanqing quickly glanced at the market and sent Su Yue another message during the brief trading halt from 9:25 to 9:30. "'Nuclear Power' and 'Domestic Aircraft Carrier,' the two major concept hotspots, have opened well. Meanwhile, market attention is quickly rising for 'Fushun Special Steel.' It feels like this stock might hit the limit up again today!"

"It's not just possible; it's highly likely to hit the limit up." Su Yue replied.

Since 'Fushun Special Steel' was already riding the wave of concept hotspots, Su Yue could almost determine that the hidden main funds driving this stock would continue to push its price higher as market attention and short-term sentiment surged. This would attract various retail investors to join in, maintaining the stock's upward momentum and accumulating more profits.

"Too bad we can only watch." Fang Wanqing responded, "Until we clear the loss-making positions in the fund, there's nothing we can do."

"There's nothing to regret." Su Yue replied, "Opportunities in the market are not limited to just this one. As you mentioned before, as long as the market is open, there will always be investment opportunities. From my perspective, this statement is a fundamental truth in trading."

As a market trader, Su Yue believed that before discussing any trading techniques and strategies, having the right trading mindset was the most basic and important aspect.

Only by maintaining the correct trading mindset of "not regretting missing out on a rally, not getting angry at a counter-trend drop in holdings, not becoming arrogant due to a sudden surge in account net value, and not becoming pessimistic due to a market downturn," could he calmly analyze market trends and seize useful trading opportunities, ultimately achieving profitability.

Once the mindset becomes unbalanced and is driven by market sentiment, it could lead to a cycle of "doing more leads to more mistakes." This could prevent one from fundamentally understanding changes in market trends and identifying truly useful trading opportunities.

"You didn't say this before." Fang Wanqing replied with a light laugh.

Su Yue responded, "When the opportunity is in front of you and you can grasp it, there's no need to hesitate. But now we know we can't grasp it, so there's no need to dwell on missed opportunities. Instead, we should keep looking forward, follow market sentiment and expectations, and seek other potential investment opportunities that we still have time to participate in."

"Your mindset is great." Fang Wanqing praised.

At the same time, she increasingly felt that Su Yue's understanding of 'market trading' was much deeper than she had anticipated.

As the two casually discussed, the trading time had already passed 9:30. The momentary pause in the market was over, and the stock prices on both sides resumed their active fluctuations.

As the market entered the formal continuous trading period, Fang Wanqing followed the trading strategy set by Fund Manager Wang Liling. She placed orders to clear the loss-making positions in her account's holdings while continuing to monitor the price movements of 'Fushun Special Steel.'

She noticed that 'Fushun Special Steel' had slightly fluctuated around the opening price for about a minute after the formal opening, then continued to surge with significant trading volume. In just five minutes, it had risen nearly 8 points.

Simultaneously, as 'Fushun Special Steel' continued to surge with strong trading volume, getting closer to hitting the limit up board.

In tandem with this stock, various industry sectors and concept sectors related to it, such as 'steel,' 'military industry,' 'nuclear power,' and 'domestic aircraft carrier' concepts, gradually climbed to the top of the market's concept sector gainers' list. They became the core hotspots chased by active funds in the early trading session.

"Hey, why is the trend of 'Fushun Special Steel' so strong?"

Accompanied by the sustained heat in the 'military industry,' 'nuclear power,' and 'domestic aircraft carrier' concept sectors, as well as the resurgence of 'Fushun Special Steel' on both the real-time price gainers' list and the top traded value list, other traders in the trading room also noticed the movements of this stock.

"There's no positive news for this stock, so why is there such a sudden movement? Is it speculative trading by retail investors?"

"Whether in the short term, medium term, or long term, there's no hope for a 'reversal of the predicament' in the steel industry. The future prospects for this stock are not good. Most likely, this is a 'oversold bounce' logic participated by retail investors. This kind of stock doesn't have much value for us to invest in."

"It's already bounced around 20%, wouldn't it be perfect to buy in on the follow-up?"

"Looking at the market depth, the trading volume for this stock today is quite significant. I wonder how many people will be lured to join."

The discussion in the trading room gradually intensified.

However, even though everyone noticed this stock, at this moment, except for Su Yue and Fang Wanqing, others who had just discussed it were not optimistic about its future trend. No one was considering in-depth analysis or preparing trading strategies for this stock.

Just as everyone thought that 'Fushun Special Steel' was following an 'oversold bounce' logic and couldn't hit the limit up so quickly after the significant trading volume in the early session...

In the next moment, at 9:43 AM.

On the price chart of this stock, a continuous series of five large orders for a million shares each suddenly appeared.

Nearly 50 million funds suddenly swept across the market, pushing its price to the limit up in just ten seconds. As 'Fushun Special Steel' reached the limit up, facing a rush of selling orders at the limit up price, before anyone could react, a series of five large orders for a million shares each swept the sell orders again, sealing its price at the limit up price with tremendous force.

Following that, at 9:44 AM.

Under the influence of various funds following suit with pending orders, the number of limit up orders for 'Fushun Special Steel' surged to over 270,000 shares, completely blocking the buy-in channel on the price chart.

"It's hitting the limit up already?"

Facing the sudden limit up of 'Fushun Special Steel,' a cry of surprise finally broke out in the trading room.

As the cry rang out, several traders who had previously doubted the stock's potential suddenly felt their faces burning and shifted their attention to the limit up price of 'Fushun Special Steel.' They fell silent, not uttering a word.

Su Yue sensed the change in the atmosphere of the trading room and couldn't help but smile inwardly. After a moment's thought, he switched accounts and began checking the profit and loss status of his personal stock account. He saw that after investing 400,000 yuan into 'Fushun Special Steel' with his entire capital the day before, he had already made over 70,000 yuan in just two days. The net asset value of his account had reached 475,643.29 yuan, with a total profit rate of 18.92%.

"It indeed hit the limit up." While Su Yue was checking his personal account's profit and loss, Fang Wanqing sent him another message on WeChat, "Su Yue, apart from 'Fushun Special Steel,' do you have any other stocks you're very optimistic about under the core hotspot of 'military industry'?"

"Why not pay attention to the sentiment and follow-up of main funds for the concepts of 'Beidou Navigation' and 'Domestic Large Aircraft'?" Su Yue replied, "If the speculative sentiment continues to spread in the 'military industry' line, these two concept directions should have strong expectations. Moreover, there have been quite a few positive market news recently related to these two concepts, which is conducive for speculative funds."

"Okay!" Fang Wanqing replied, "I'll look into it."

After replying, Fang Wanqing switched the interface and quickly shifted her attention to the concepts of 'Beidou Navigation' and 'Domestic Large Aircraft.' According to the corresponding stock selection logic, she began to screen for concept stocks with explosive potential.

Based on the market performance of 'Fushun Special Steel' for the past two days, and Su Yue's ability in trading operations and market analysis displayed over these two days, Fang Wanqing unconsciously began to trust Su Yue's analysis and judgment of the market more and more. Simultaneously, she increasingly felt that between the two of them, she seemed to be the intern being guided.

This reversal of roles in terms of abilities made her feel absurd deep down, yet at the same time... she felt a sense of pride.

After all, nominally, she was Su Yue's trading mentor, and the better Su Yue's account performance was, the more positive recognition she received as his 'mentor.' Moreover, they had both graduated from the same university, studied the same major, and Su Yue's impressive trading abilities indirectly reflected her own competence as well.

Seeing that Fang Wanqing was engrossed in researching the stocks related to the 'Beidou Navigation' and 'Domestic Large Aircraft' concepts online and wouldn't disturb him for a while, and knowing that there was currently no need to make any transactions in his accounts, whether it was his fund sub-accounts or his personal stock account, Su Yue found himself with some idle time. He switched to another interface, opening a stock investment forum he frequently visited, and began browsing the forum casually.

He glanced at the forum's popular topics section.

There were posts with real trading records, macro market analyses, stock recommendations, complaints about blown accounts, and discussions about the current market trends of popular stocks...

Su Yue randomly clicked on a discussion thread about the current market trend of the popular stock 'Fushun Special Steel.'

In the post, the discussion was centered around the stock 'Fushun Special Steel,' which had just hit two consecutive limit up boards, attracting a growing amount of attention and speculative sentiment. As he scrolled through the hundreds of replies below the main post, Su Yue realized that although there were many optimistic investors, a significant portion were still bearish on the stock. Moreover, upon closer inspection, he found that many of the bearish opinions had logical reasoning behind them.

"Divergence is what drives the market!" Su Yue thought to himself after reading the post. "Judging from the sentiment, 'Fushun Special Steel' will probably continue to surge tomorrow."

The saying goes that the bears don't die, and the bulls don't stop.

When the sentiment and expectations for a stock can continue to spread, even the bearish shorts can become potential bulls.

After browsing the popular discussion thread about 'Fushun Special Steel,' Su Yue switched back to the forum's main page and clicked on another highly popular thread in the real trading records section. In this post, the thread creator had posted their real trading account, and the extent of their losses was truly dreadful. They were on the verge of a margin call.

Using their own capital of 2 million yuan, they went all in on a stock called 'Northern Navigation.'

This stock belonged to the 'military industry' sector, but despite the fervent market speculation surrounding the 'military industry' concept over the past month, this particular stock showed no significant performance. Its price not only lagged behind the overall 'military industry' sector index but also significantly underperformed the market.

"It's actually this stock."

Seeing that the person had gone all in on the core component stock of the 'Beidou Navigation' concept, which he was currently bullish on, Su Yue couldn't help but follow the replies in the thread to get more insights.

In the entire thread, there were over 200 replies, and most of them were posts from the thread creator themselves.

By analyzing the thread creator's posts in the thread, Su Yue could clearly sense the emotional journey the person had gone through during their entire holding period.

At the beginning, they remained relatively optimistic in the face of account losses, actively analyzing the market situation and holding firm to their investment choices. As their account losses increased and the stock they held continued to weaken, their optimism gradually turned into pessimism over time, and doubt began to fill their investment choices. Eventually, when their account was deeply trapped, losses were mounting, and they were on the verge of a margin call, the frequency of their updates started to decrease rapidly. Meanwhile, the emotional tone of their posts shifted from pessimism to despair.

Even as Su Yue reached the last few pages of the thread.

He saw the thread creator's last post: "Today, I used the last bit of savings from my family to replenish margin at the brokerage firm for the fifth time, pulling my account back from the brink of liquidation. I don't know what I'm still holding on for, and I don't know when these dark days will pass. I just feel very sorry for my wife and daughter beside me."

Following the thread creator's last words, there were many well-meaning replies from other forum investors.

After reading those replies, Su Yue found that most of the people were advising the thread creator not to continue holding on against the market trend and to stop their losses. Only a small minority of replies continued to offer encouragement, just like the thread creator, hoping for a glimmer of light to appear after the market's darkness.

As he read through those replies and followed the thread creator's journey of holding a full position for a year and a half, Su Yue couldn't help but reflect on how, after the previous bull market peak, he had sunk into the abyss of a brutal bear market for a full six years. A mix of emotions swelled within him, and since he had stumbled upon this opportunity, he thought it might be worthwhile to leave a mark. So, he logged into his forum account under the name 'Growing Leek,' and in the comments section, he left his analysis and insights on the stock 'Northern Navigation,' along with some preliminary judgments on the macro market trends. He also left an encouraging message: "No matter how long the darkness lasts, the dawn will eventually come."

(End of this chapter)