"Climax" first, and then fight the defense of Asia?

Author | Xie Xiaobai

"When you come out to mix, you always have to pay it back. ”

In many cases, what affects the fate of life and the trend of a country is often not in some important moments and major events, but in some very meaningless things.

For example, in "Golden Vase Plum", it was not Wu Song who buried Ximenqing, but the three Hu monk aphrodisiacs that Pan Jinlian took out by hand.

There is a book on the history of human aphrodisiacs called "Isolde's Magic Soup", which begins with the words: The beginning of the world is an extreme orgasm.

Now, is the current market the climax of getting better, or is it a mutual test of ups and downs?

I don't know, but one thing is certain – the specter of the May financial storm is hanging over Asia.

01

As we had previously expected, as Japan fell below the 151 mark, America's allies in Asia began to dive into the de facto "blood bag".

Overnight, everyone seems to have lost too much, turning on the wall-to-walk mode, specifically:

The yen has now fallen below the 154 mark, which is the lowest level of the yen against the dollar since June 1990;

The won hit the 1,400 mark, the first time since November last year that it touched the round number mark;

The Indian rupee further rewrote its all-time low on Tuesday, with the dollar hitting 83.535 against the rupee during the day, breaking through the intraday high of 83.50 reached in November last year.

The rupiah has depreciated by nearly 5% this year, making it one of the worst-performing currencies in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Philippine peso fell to a seven-month low against the dollar on Tuesday;

USD/VND hit a record high of 25,295 during the day.

The collapse of the exchange rate has also triggered turmoil in the capital markets, specifically:

On April 16, Japanese stocks fell, and the Nikkei 225 Index opened lower and closed down 1.94% at 38,471.20 points, the lowest close since February 21;

South Korea's Seoul Composite Index opened down 1% and closed down 2.28% at 2,609.63, the largest loser among Asian benchmark stock indexes, dragged down by foreign sell-offs.

The Taiwan Stock Exchange's weighted stock index fell nearly 2% to 20,071.61 points, once falling more than 2.6%, the largest decline since October 2022, and closed down 2.68% to 19,901.96;

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index extended its decline to 2.1% at one point, erasing gains since 2024;

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 2.2% to 169 points at one point, its biggest drop since August 2023.

Correspondingly, interest rates in the bond market have skyrocketed.

Japan's 5-year government bond yield rose to its highest level since April 2011;

Indonesia's 5-year government bond yield rose to 6.65%, the highest since January;

Indonesia's 10-year government bond yield rose to 6.86%, the highest since November.

 It is no exaggeration to say that the tension and oppression of the mountain rain are coming, and the situation that has only been seen in the past textbooks is shining into reality.

What to do?

02

In fact, if the central banks of Asian countries and the ministries of finance do not make a decision sooner, then the Asian financial crisis of '97 will be staged again.

It was we who got everyone out of the quagmire last time, and this time the script is likely to be the same.

Crises and crises are organic; blessings and misfortunes depend on each other.

If it holds, then we will reshape the Asian pattern, rely on the Belt and Road Initiative to promote the incremental market, undertake global production capacity, achieve further industrialization and intelligence, and drive the economic development of Asian countries to a virtuous circle.

On the contrary, the Asian region will be broken by each other, and one defense battle after another will take turns.

Based on this, we will find that the AIIB and we behind it have begun to prepare for the end, so we have seen the rapid implementation of the video conference call to "promote the landing .....of ultra-long-term special government bonds".

There are actually two reasons for this:

The first is to maintain the financial level of various localities;

The second is to replace the next debt swap, mainly with the US bonds in hand and the sovereign bonds of distressed Asian countries, to defeat the shorts as soon as possible, and restore the balance of entry and exit under the capital account of various countries, so as to stabilize the capital markets of various countries and return the pressure to short-selling international capital.

Therefore, it seems that the "big release" is actually a "general mobilization".

Based on this, we opened a position in a securities ETF at the opening auction today, betting that this is a "climax".

After all, to climax, the brokerage must exert force!

03

Of course, there are other reasons to choose a brokerage:

Salary cuts, layoffs.

The head analyst who once received an annual salary of tens of millions should earn less than 1/3 of the previous one.

In addition, travel and meal subsidies have dropped significantly.

This even alarmed the foreign media.

Of course, not only brokers, this wind has even blown to investment banks.

An investment banking friend I haven't seen before, recently asked me out to sit every day, and I asked him why he was so idle?

He replied that he had been off for half a year, and he had no serious work, all in order to deal with various inquiries and investigation letters from the regulatory authorities......

Salary bonuses are still being paid, after all, investment banks are delayed in issuing bonuses for IPO refinancing. Some bonuses are deferred for 2-3 years. (I know if I have worked in investment banks and asset management companies)

But also panic, because in 2024, there will be no business at all, and the income will be less and less.

He is the person in charge, managing the local investment banking team of 30 people, and is also thinking about how to generate income and reduce the burden. Subtract and subtract can only lay off employees and reduce salaries.

Of course, none of this is a big deal, after all, it's in such an economic cycle.

In the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, how many traders and researchers walked out of skyscrapers in front of TV cameras with cardboard boxes.

All of the above shows that the current environment is cramped and the atmosphere is tense.

But the more this happens, the more we need to prove that we're fine.

Therefore, in the context of Asia's needs, market needs, and their own business needs, brokerages and banks need to stand up......

So we saw it too.

As for the future?

04

Márquez wrote that sentence in "One Hundred Years of Solitude":

All the splendor that you have ever had in your life needs to be repaid with loneliness after all.

It is foreseeable that the war to defend Asia is about to begin, but let us "climax" first, of course, it may also be "trembling" before we do it again.