From1July 1997, a financial crisis broke out in Southeast Asia, which started in Thailand and then quickly spread to the whole Southeast Asia and the whole world. As a result, the foreign exchange market and stock market in many countries and regions in Southeast Asia plunged in turn, and the financial system and even the whole social economy suffered serious trauma. It was only half a year from1July 1997 to1September 19981October, while Southeast Asia and most countries in the same period. The stock markets in these countries and regions fell by 30% ~ 60%. It is estimated that in this financial crisis, the economic losses caused by the decline of foreign exchange market and stock market alone to Southeast Asian families and regions reached more than 654.38+000 billion US dollars. Affected by foreign exchange and stock market crash. These countries and regions have experienced severe economic recession.

The crisis began with the devaluation of the Thai baht. 1July 2, 997, Thailand was forced to announce that the Thai baht was decoupled from the US dollar. Implement a floating exchange rate system. At that time, the Thai baht exchange rate plummeted by 20%. Countries with the same economic problems as Thailand, such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, were quickly hit by the devaluation of the Thai baht. On July 1 1, the Philippines announced that it would allow the peso to be exchanged with the US dollar in a wider range, when the big peso depreciated by 1 1.5%. On the same day, Malaysia prevented the ringgit from depreciating further by raising bank interest rates. Indonesia was forced to abandon the exchange rate between its currency and the US dollar, and the Indonesian rupiah depreciated from July 2 to 14% to 14.

Following the financial turmoil in Thailand and other ASEAN countries, the depreciation of Taiwan and the stock market in Taiwan Province Province caused the second wave of financial crisis. On June 65438+1 October 65438+July, the Taiwan Province market depreciated by 0.98 yuan, reaching1US dollar to NT$ 29.5, setting a new low in the past thousand years. Correspondingly, the Taiwan Province stock market fell 165.55 points that day. The new Taiwan dollar fell to 30.45 yuan at 1 USD. Taiwan Province stock market fell another 30 1.67 points. Taiwan Province's currency devaluation and stock market crash not only aggravated the financial crisis in Southeast Asia, but also triggered a sharp decline, including the US stock market. 10 year 10 On October 27th, the Dow Jones index plummeted by 554.26 points, forcing the new york Stock Exchange to use the trading suspension system for the first time in nine years. 10 year 10 On October 28th, the stock markets of Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand fell by 4.4%, 7.6%, 6.6%, 6.7% and 6.3% respectively. In particular, the Hong Kong stock market was hit by external shocks. Hong Kong Hang Seng Index dropped by 765.33 points and 1.200 points on June 27 and June 28, 2008, and 1.400 points on October 28, 2008 respectively. These three major Hong Kong stock markets have fallen by more than 25%.

165438+1In late October, South Korea's foreign exchange market and stock market fell in turn, forming the third wave of the financial crisis. 165438+ 10 month, the Korean won exchange rate continued to fall, of which 165438+ 10% plunged within half an hour of opening on October 20th, setting a record of 1/kloc-0. By the close of 1 1, the exchange rate of the won against the US dollar had fallen by 30%, and the Korean stock market had also fallen by more than 20%. At the same time, Japan's financial crisis has deepened. In June165438+1October, many Japanese banks and securities companies went bankrupt or closed down, and the yen against the US dollar also fell below the 130 mark, depreciating by 17.03% compared with the beginning of the year.

From 1998 to 65438+ 10, the focus of the Southeast Asian financial crisis shifted to Indonesia and India, forming the fourth wave of financial crisis. On August 8, the Indonesian rupiah plunged 26% against the US dollar. On June 12, Hong Kong Baifuqin Investment Company, which is engaged in huge investment business in Indonesia, announced liquidation. On the same day, the Hang Seng Index plunged by 773.58 points, while the Singapore, Taiwan Province and Japanese stock markets fell by 102.88 points, 362 points and 330.66 points respectively. It was not until early February that the worsening trend of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia was initially contained.

PS: External Cause —— An Analysis of the Speculative Behavior of Soros, an International Speculator and Financial Crocodile

1 On March 3, 1997, the Central Bank of Thailand announced that nine domestic finance companies and1housing loan companies had problems of low asset quality and insufficient liquidity. Soros and his men thought it was a hint that there might be deeper problems in Thailand's financial system, so they preemptively ordered the sale of shares in Thai banks and financial companies, and depositors withdrew a lot from all financial and securities companies in Thailand. At this time, the western impact fund headed by Soros is waiting for a large number of Southeast Asian currencies to jointly sell the Thai baht on a large scale. Under the siege of many western "heroes", the Thai baht was irresistible for a while and kept falling. In May, the lowest jumped to 1 USD against 26.70 baht. The Central Bank of Thailand devoted all its efforts to the whole country, and launched an anti-encirclement campaign against Soros in the middle and late May, aiming at disintegrating Soros's will, making him retreat from difficulties and stopping leading the people to attack the Thai baht.

As the first step, the Bank of Thailand formed an alliance with Singapore and used a huge sum of about 654.38+0.2 billion US dollars to absorb Thai milling. The second step is to imitate Mahathir's strategy and tactics in 1994 and prohibit local banks from lending Thai wood to Soros's army by administrative order; Step 3: Raise the interest rate substantially, and raise the overnight rate from about 10% to 1500%. With a three-pronged approach, sophisticated weapons and a strong counterattack, on May 20, Taimo rose to a new high of 2,520.

Due to the sudden tightening of monetary policy and the sharp increase in interest costs, Soros's army was caught off guard and lost $300 million, which was a blow.

However, Soros is still Soros. According to his intuition, Soros thinks that the Bank of Thailand can do nothing more than that. After hard work, the Thais did not put themselves in a desperate situation and suffered relatively little losses. In a way, Soros thinks he has won. For southeast Asian countries, the initial victory was only a flash in the pan before the disaster, which could not hurt his vitality at all, nor could it save the fate of the southeast Asian financial crisis.

Soros has worked hard for this opportunity for several years, and this time he is prepared and determined to win. The first defeat of the vanguard troops did not stop there, and Soros had to fight three wars in Southeast Asia.

1June, 997, Soros sent troops again. He ordered the three armed forces to regroup, ordered hedge funds to start selling US Treasury bonds to raise funds, expanded Soros's army, and later launched another fierce attack on the Thai baht. In a flash, the inclusive market in Southeast Asia was filled with smoke, and the two sides started hand-to-hand combat. Thailand is in chaos and the war situation is complicated. The major exchanges are like boiling hot soup, and people are running and screaming wildly.

After a short battle, the Central Bank of Thailand, with a foreign exchange reserve of only $30 billion, announced that it had "run out of ammunition and food". Faced with the overwhelming Soros army, they could not keep the Thai baht at a fixed exchange rate. Thais have to come up with a last resort, dig up the meat to mend the sore and implement a floating exchange rate. Unexpectedly, this is what Soros expected, and he also made various preparations for it. Various countermeasures have been implemented, and the fate of the Thai baht has been set on the cross of shame by Soros. The Thai baht continued to fall. On July 24th, the Thai baht fell to 32.5: 1 against the US dollar, a record low. Soros's slaughter of the Thai baht really made the world miserable, and the Thai people were even more frightened, dumbfounded and complaining.

Soros adopted a three-dimensional speculative strategy, not just foreign exchange operations. The so-called three-dimensional speculation refers to financial speculation by using the correlation between three or more financial instruments.

During the first half of 1997, some large funds, represented by Quantum Fund, used "leverage" to continuously squeeze the financial market in Thailand, which triggered the financial crisis in Thailand. In the subsequent evolution of the Southeast Asian financial crisis, these funds used "leverage" on a large scale, which aggravated the degree of the crisis. How did they do it? As Soros himself described, "We use our own money to buy stocks, pay 5% in cash and borrow the remaining 95%;" If bonds are used as collateral, we can borrow more money, and we can buy long-term bonds worth at least $50,000 with 1000. (Soros et al. Soros on Soros, Hainan Publishing House, 1997). They used their own funds as collateral, borrowed money from banks to buy securities, and then used securities as collateral to continue borrowing, which quickly expanded the debt ratio. Not only that, they also widely speculate on various derivatives with "high leverage" characteristics, thus further increasing the leverage ratio. According to The Economist, Quantum Fund did buy a large number of put options as early as1March 1997, borrowed a large amount of Thai baht in the form of swaps, and sold Thai baht futures and forwards, because it was expected that counterparties would sell Thai baht spot to hedge the value of derivative contracts, and it was easy to be devalued by others. It is worth mentioning that his practice in Hong Kong is a classic example of three-dimensional hype.

Under normal circumstances, due to the existence of non-arbitrage equilibrium relationship between financial markets, with the birth and development of various financial derivatives and their markets, the spot market, forward market, money market, capital market and derivative market of foreign exchange are interlocking, locked one after another, which affects the whole body. Typical examples, such as June 1997, June 10, and several subsequent attacks by international speculators on Hong Kong's financial market, first of all, international speculators borrowed a lot of Hong Kong dollars in the money market and sold Hong Kong dollars, forcing the Hong Kong government to substantially raise the interbank interest rate in the money market; The sharp rise in interbank interest rates in the money market led to a decline in the stock market; At the same time, the Hang Seng stock index futures in the derivative market fell sharply. The plunge of HSI futures accelerated the decline of the stock market; The decline in stock prices has sharply reduced the confidence of foreign investors in the Hong Kong economy and the Hong Kong dollar, and they have sold Hong Kong stocks in exchange for US dollars, putting the Hong Kong dollar under a new round of depreciation pressure. The chain reaction of various markets finally expanded the victory of speculators in an all-round way.

It is expected that the attack on Hong Kong's foreign exchange market will cause a chain reaction, and international speculators will make a three-dimensional layout in various markets. On the one hand, they will increase their bets in various markets and encourage speculation; On the other hand, once the speculation is successful, you can get a full harvest and match the speculative risk with the high income. Soros made a vivid description of this: "If you regard the general portfolio as a flat or two-dimensional thing, as the name implies, it is the easiest to understand. However, our portfolio is more like a building. Based on our share capital, establish a three-dimensional structure with structure and financing, supported by the pledged value of the basic shares. ..... We are willing to invest capital according to three main axes: stock position, interest rate position and foreign exchange position. ..... different parts reinforce each other, creating this three-dimensional structure composed of risks and profit opportunities. Usually two days-a rising day and a falling day-are enough to make our fund expand at a high speed. " (Soros et al. Soros on Soros, Hainan Publishing House, 1997). International speculators made full use of this "three-dimensional speculation" strategy when attacking Hong Kong's financial market: first, they borrowed a lot of Hong Kong dollars in the money market; In the stock market, borrow constituent stocks; Accumulate short futures in the stock futures market; Then use spot trading to short the Hong Kong dollar in the foreign exchange market and sell the Hong Kong dollar forward contract at the same time; Forcing the Hong Kong government to raise interest rates to defend the linked exchange rate; In the stock market, the borrowed constituent stocks are thrown out to suppress the futures index. On the whole, based on the close relationship between financial markets, the "three-dimensional layout" strengthens the risk exposure of speculators and greatly increases the motivation and income of leveraged speculation.

The Hong Kong dollar is linked to the exchange rate system and has an automatic adjustment mechanism, which is not easy to break. However, the interest rate of the Hong Kong dollar can easily rise sharply, which will affect the sharp decline of the stock market. In this case, as long as you short the stock market and futures market in advance, and then borrow a lot of Hong Kong dollars from banks, the interest rate of Hong Kong dollars will rise sharply and the Hang Seng Index will plummet, you can get speculative profits as in other countries. Since 1997 and 10, international speculators have made four attempts in Hong Kong's stock market, foreign exchange market and futures market, and the first three attempts have made huge profits. From the end of July to the beginning of August, 1998, international speculators once again attacked the Hong Kong dollar through hedge funds, pushing up interest rates and interest rates. Obviously, their attack on the Hong Kong dollar is only superficial, and the stock market and futures market are the real main targets. Introduction to the east is Soros's consistent speculative means, which has been successful many times.

Speculators sold stocks and futures index in the securities market, which greatly suppressed the Hang Seng Index and futures index, causing the Hang Seng Index to drop from 654.38+00000 points to 8000 points and directly to 6000 points. When the rainy weather is coming, the bad news in the securities market is flying all over the sky, and speculators take the opportunity to talk nonsense, threatening that "the RMB can't stand it, and it will depreciate soon, with the depreciation rate exceeding 10%". "The Hong Kong dollar will be decoupled from the US dollar and devalued by 40%" and "The Hang Seng Index will drop to 4,000 points". Its purpose is nothing more than disturbing people's hearts, creating a "herd mentality", and then taking the opportunity to fish in troubled waters. On August 13, the Hang Seng Index once fell by 300 points, breaking through the 6600 mark. At the close, the decline narrowed, but it still fell 199 points to close at 6660 points. Its trend is very similar to that of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets in the second half of 200 1 year. Landmines are ringing every day, and the trend of "knocking down" is shocking.

While depressing the Hang Seng Index, international speculators have accumulated a large number of short positions in the Hang Seng Index futures market. Every time the Hang Seng Index drops by 65,438+0 points, each short position contract can earn HK$ 50. In the first 65,438+09 trading days of August 65,438+04, the Hang Seng Index plummeted by more than 2,000 points, and each contract earned HK$ 654,380+,showing the high income!

After the Hang Seng Index was suppressed to the bottom of 6660 points on August 38+03 in the first round, the Hong Kong Government mobilized Hong Kong, Chinese and British capitals to enter the market and started a battle with their rivals for the August stock index futures contract. Speculative capital means that the air force wants to suppress the index, and the Hong Kong government wants to hold the index, forcing speculators to sell contracts at a high level in advance, and cannot cash out at a low level before the end of August. After the Hong Kong government entered the market, it bought a large number of August stock index futures contracts with short speculative funds, pushing the price up from 66 10 before entering the market to 7820 on the 24th, with an increase of over 8%, which was higher than the average opening price of 7500 investment funds. After the market closed, the Hong Kong government announced that it would use the Exchange Fund to intervene in the stock and futures markets. However, financial snipers are still unwilling. According to the original plan, on August 6th, 16, Russia was forced to give up the action of defending the ruble, which led to a complete collapse of the US and European stock markets on August 6th, 17. However, to their great disappointment, on August 18, the Hang Seng Index was near misses, and closed slightly down 13 points.

In the second round, the two sides launched a warehouse transfer war from August 25 to 28, forcing speculative capital to pay a high price. On the 27th and 28th, speculative capital swarmed out in the stock spot market in an attempt to outperform the index. At the same time, the Hong Kong government clung to the stock market. After eight days of soul-stirring fighting, the contract price of the futures market in August was pushed up to 7990 points, and the settlement price was 785 1 point, which was 1200 points higher than before entering the market. On August 27th and 28th, the Hong Kong government accepted all the sales orders. As a result, the transaction amount reached HK$ 20 billion on the 27th and HK$ 79 billion on the 28th, setting a record for the highest transaction in Hong Kong.

On the 27th, on the eve of futures settlement in August, the SAR Government made a decisive gesture. Although the global financial news was extremely bad that day, the US Dow Jones stock index fell by 2 17 points, while European and Latin American stock markets fell by 3%-8%. The Hong Kong stock market is facing a severe test. According to market sources, the Hong Kong government injected about HK$ 20 billion a day, which made the Hang Seng Index rise by 88 points. Lay the foundation for the final decisive battle.

On the same day, the International Speculator Quantum Fund declared that the Hong Kong government would fail. The chief investment strategy of Soros Quantum Fund, an international speculator speculating in the Hong Kong market, admitted for the first time that Quantum Fund had been shorting the Hong Kong dollar and the Hang Seng Index when interviewed by American consumer news and business channel TV. He also said that due to the economic recession in Hong Kong, the "war" launched by the Hong Kong government against international investors in the foreign exchange market and the stock market will end in failure. Although Soros made big moves every time, he never publicly admitted that he was attacking a certain currency. This kind of incident in which he openly challenged a government in the name of a company or some people and threatened to overthrow a government was unheard of and unprecedented.

The 28th is the futures settlement period, and speculators have a large number of futures orders that must be sold when they expire. If the stock market and foreign exchange market can stabilize at a high level or continue to break through, speculators will lose hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, otherwise tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars invested by the Hong Kong Government a few days ago will be thrown into the sea. The scene of the war between the two sides on that day was far more thrilling than the day before. All-day turnover reached a record of HK$ 79 billion. The Hong Kong government has made every effort to resist the unprecedented selling pressure from international speculators. At the close, the Hang Seng Index reported 7829 points, which was 1 17.55% higher than that in August before HKMA entered the market.

Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's Financial Secretary, immediately announced that the Hong Kong government had won the battle against international speculators and defended the Hong Kong stock market and the Hong Kong dollar. Market participants in Hong Kong estimate that the Hong Kong government has invested more than HK$ 654.38+000 billion in the two-week stock market support operation, and concentrated on buying the stocks of several major blue-chip companies in Hong Kong. It is estimated that the Hong Kong government currently holds 4% of the total market value of the Hong Kong stock market of US$ 26,543.8+000 billion, and has become a major shareholder of many blue-chip companies in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Futures Exchange introduced three new measures on the 29th. That is, from the opening of the market on August 3 1, a special deposit of 1 50% will be levied on customers who hold more than110,000 Hang Seng Index futures contracts, that is, the deposit for each Hang Seng Index futures contract will be adjusted from HK$ 80,000 to HK$120,000; Reduce the requirement of reporting large positions from 500 contracts to 250 contracts; At the time of declaration, the identity of a large number of positions must also be declared to the futures exchange.

On March 3 1 day, the stock market plunged by 7. 1% after the government terminated the support action, but the decline was less than market participants expected. The Hang Seng Index fell 554.70 points to close at 7,257.04 points, with a total turnover of only HK$ 6.6 billion, less than one tenth of last Friday's record high of HK$ 79 billion. However, some investors had predicted that the index might plummet 15%.

However, speculative capital is not willing to rest. They believe that the Hong Kong government has invested about HK$ 654.38+000 billion, which cannot be sustained for a long time. Therefore, they decided to change the time of shorting stock index futures contracts from August to September to fight a protracted war with the Hong Kong government. Since August 25th, speculative capital has been shorting September contracts in large quantities while liquidating August contracts. At the same time, the Hong Kong government pursued victory on the basis of closing the contract in August, making the price of the September contract 650 points higher than the settlement price of the August contract. In this way, speculative capital has to pay more than HK$ 30,000 per contract. The investment capital completely failed in the contract competition in August.

In the third round, the Hong Kong government continued to push up the price of stock index futures in September, forcing speculative funds to leave at a loss. On September 7, the financial management department of the Hong Kong Government promulgated new regulations on foreign exchange, securities trading and settlement to restrict speculators' speculation. On that day, the Hang Seng Index soared 588 points to close at 8076 points. At the same time, the appreciation of the yen and the stability of Southeast Asian financial markets have increased the capital and transaction costs of speculative capital, and speculative capital has to retreat. On September 8, the contract price in September rose to 8220 points, and the speculative funds transferred at the end of August had to close their positions and leave, and each contract lost another HK$ 40,000. On September 1 day, when the trading results of the spot market on August 28th were delivered, the Hong Kong government found that the trading shares of HK$ 146 billion could not be delivered due to loopholes in the settlement system, and speculators were able to escape.

In this consecutive 10 trading day intervention, the Hong Kong government intervened in the stock market, futures market and foreign exchange market at the same time, trying to form a three-dimensional defense network, which prevented international speculators from exerting their good means of "introducing from the east to the west" or "shaking the mountain". Specifically, since most speculators sell futures below 8,000 points, the Hong Kong Government hopes to push the Hang Seng Index to a level close to 8,000 points, raise the settlement price of the August futures index, and let the September futures index fall back, thus widening the gap between the two. Even if some speculators want to transfer warehouse receipts from August to September, they have to pay hundreds of points for admission, which greatly increases the cost. In terms of specific operations, the Hong Kong government and international speculators will focus on large blue-chip stocks, mainly including HSBC, Hongkong Telecom, Cheung Kong Industrial and other stocks. These stocks have large capital stock and high market value, which play an important role in the fluctuation of Hang Seng Index. Take HSBC as an example. This stock accounts for 30% of the Hang Seng Index, so it has become a competitive stock. By the end of August, 1999, calculate the stocks bought at that time. The book profit was about HK$ 71700 million, up by 60.8%, and the Hang Seng Index rebounded to 13500. International speculators suffered heavy losses, and the Hong Kong government's entry into the market was a great success. It is said that Soros lost $800 million alone. It is said that the China government used foreign exchange reserves to support the government. But the market is opened by the government itself, so it is a little entertaining to go in and play (criticized by Greenspan).

Soros made a profit of $2 billion in the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis (outside speculation).

The financial crisis in Southeast Asia has lasted for a long time, caused great harm and spread widely, far exceeding people's expectations. However, this crisis is no accident, it is the inevitable result of a series of factors. From the external reasons, it is the huge impact of international investment and the resulting withdrawal of foreign capital. According to statistics, during the crisis, foreign capital evacuated from Southeast Asian countries and regions reached as high as 40 billion US dollars. However, the most fundamental cause of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia lies in the economic contradictions within these countries and regions. Southeast Asian countries and regions are one of the fastest growing regions in the world economy in recent 20 years. With the rapid economic growth in recent years, these countries and regions have exposed more and more serious problems: ① With the increase of labor costs and the intensification of market competition, the advantages of export-oriented labor-intensive industries are declining. The economic growth mode and economic structure of the above-mentioned Southeast Asian countries and regions have not been adjusted in time and effectively, which leads to the decline of competitiveness, slow growth of foreign exports and high current account deficit. From 65438 to 0996, Thailand's current account deficit was $23 billion, and South Korea's was as high as $23.7 billion. ② The bank loan is too loose, the real estate investment is too large, the vacancy rate of commercial housing is rising, and the bank has bad debts. Bad assets such as bad debts are expanding day by day. The cash flow problem of financial institutions in Thailand is serious. Several large enterprises in South Korea declared bankruptcy due to insolvency, several financial institutions in Japan closed down, and the credit crisis in Indonesia intensified. These economic factors have affected the foreign exchange market and the stock market from various aspects. (3) Economic growth relies too much on foreign capital, and a large amount of foreign capital is introduced, which leads to the aggravation of foreign debt. Thailand's foreign debt was $20 billion in 1992, $86 billion before 1997 depreciation, and South Korea's foreign debt exceeded $15 billion. ④ The exchange rate system is rigid. In recent years, the US dollar has greatly appreciated against major international currencies, and the exchange rates of Southeast Asian countries and regions have not been adjusted, which has led to overvaluation, which has aggravated the rise in product prices and the sharp decline in exports. Therefore, it is imperative for these countries and regions to devalue their currencies. Currency devaluation leads to a further decline in the ability to repay foreign debts, and inflationary pressure intensifies, thus prompting the stock market to fall. ⑤ In the case of insufficient opening conditions and adaptability, open the financial market prematurely and join the international financial integration. When international hot money takes the opportunity to make waves, some Southeast Asian countries and regions are at a loss or lack of measures, and are completely in a passive position.