At twelve o'clock noon, Zhou Yang finally got up from the bed. He slept late yesterday and did not really fall asleep until four in the morning.

There is a 12-hour time difference between New York and Hong Kong. NYMEX's daily opening time is 9 pm in Hong Kong and 2 30 pm in the second half of the night.

As usual, Zhou Yang contacted his agent in New York at around 8:40 pm.

Zhou Yang will first ask about the closing price, fluctuations in the heating oil futures the day before, and then discuss the conditions for adding or reducing positions today with the broker.

Before there is no computer automated trading, whether it is stock trading or futures trading, it is a very troublesome thing. You have to call your broker first, and then contact the trader on the market to trade.

Once the market fluctuates violently, the phone calls of securities brokers will be blown up by countless customers at the same time. If the market rises, it would be fine, at most it would be just a missed opportunity to make money.

If the market plummets, even if you just call one second later than others, it may cause you to lose several percentage points more.

Therefore, most customers will agree with the broker in advance to automatically close the stop loss line. As long as the price falls below the loss line, the broker will immediately help you cut the position to control the loss.

Zhou Yang had hired two college students in New York to help him collect various information and information related to the Middle East. A news they heard yesterday finally made Zhou Yang feel that the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War was approaching.

Iraqi President Saddam announced that the Algiers Agreement signed with Iran would be abolished from now on. This was an agreement signed by the two countries in 1975 to resolve the division of borders between the two countries under the coordination of Algeria.

The reason for the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War is summarized in a simple sentence: Saddam wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of Iran being isolated by the international community to seize Khuzestan Province next to the Iraqi border by force, and the province's oil reserves account for as much as 57% of Iran's total oil reserves.

Iraq now uses the excuse that the other party has not fulfilled its promise to abolish the Algiers Agreement signed with Iran, which has cleared the biggest political obstacles for the next dispatch.

So Zhou Yang felt that this was a signal that the war was about to break out, so he decided to raise his position immediately and continue to chase the rise in heating oil futures. However, the price trend of heating oil futures last night made him very confused.

The smallest unit of change in heating oil price is US$0.0001 per gallon. Zhou Yang's heavy holdings in December heating oil futures closed at 0.7602 the previous day, while the opening at 0.7611 last night.

After the opening, the price rose for a while, and rose to 0.7618 in half an hour. Then it suddenly turned around and fell, and the final closing price was only 0.7587, even lower than the previous day.

Could it be that the Wall Street bosses have not yet determined that Iraq may use force against Iran?

This really shouldn't be! Although they don't have a God's perspective like Zhou Yang, the channels for Wall Street masters to obtain information are also much richer and more informative than Zhou Yang.

If the United States could not judge that Saddam would do this a month ago, it would be understandable that the United States could not judge that Saddam would do this. After all, Iraq is a traditional pro-Soviet country, and the United States has very limited influence within it.

But as time goes by, there are more and more clues. If Wall Street Capital has not noticed something strange yet, it would be too unreasonable.

However, the performance of heating oil futures gives Zhou Yang the feeling that the market has not heard any turbulence so far. The price he built a position more than 20 days ago was 0.7420. Even if calculated based on the highest intraday price of 0.7618 yesterday, the cumulative increase in more than three weeks was only 2.67%.

As winter approaches, heating oil futures are already under bullish pressure. So Zhou Yang is very confused. Why did the closing price not only not rise but also fall a little?

After the market closed yesterday, Zhou Yang specially called New York to communicate with his broker. The other party told him the reason for the decline was mainly because there was rumors in the market that a large oil refinery would expand its crude oil processing capacity. The refinery supplied nearly 20% of the oil to the delivery location of NYMEX's heating oil futures.

Well, the increase in production capacity of a domestic refinery in the United States has exceeded the risk of the two major oil-producing countries that may go to war.

In fact, since Zhou Yang participated in the heating oil futures trading, he felt that the market fluctuations of futures were not even as severe as the oil stocks in his stock account.

So he lay in bed and thought for a long time, and finally found only one reason. The US government's control on oil prices is likely to be the culprit of the trend of heating oil futures prices and the inconsistent with the fluctuations in international crude oil prices.

So he quickly climbed out of bed and called the two part-time workers he hired in New York, asking them to immediately collect the daily price changes in the two major oil spot markets, New York and Rotterdam, within the past month.

Well, it is indeed a bit difficult to ask two students studying international politics to inquire about the situation in the oil spot market. But Zhou Yang said he could increase the money, so the morale of the employees on the other end of the phone immediately rose, saying that they could definitely overcome the difficulties.

After arranging the task, the sky outside the window was already bright, so Zhou Yang quickly slept for a while. When he woke up, he didn't go to wash first, but ran directly to the fax machine without going to wash.

The dollar is indeed magical. The printed thermal paper has been extended and sagging to the ground from the paper outlet of the fax machine on the desk.

Zhou Yang quickly browsed the information above. Although he was not familiar with professional terms such as discount, premium, and various crude oil varieties, he could still see some clues based on all the data every day.

Whether in Rotterdam or New York, oil spot prices have ushered in a rapid rise in the past half month. Especially in the past two days, the price fluctuations are very severe, which is obviously the market's direct reaction to the further deterioration of the situation in the Middle East.

I found out that my judgment before going to bed yesterday was not wrong, but this result made him quite depressed.

He originally wanted to make a big profit by heating oil futures, but now he found that his final real profit might be much smaller than expected. However, because of his lack of strength, he could only see the opportunity lost in vain.

If he had known this, he might as well keep his money in the Hong Kong stock market. After the Hong Kong stock market entered September, although it was adversely affected by the continued rise in interest rates, it fell from 1226 points at the end of August to 1170 points.

But this is still more than a hundred points higher than the day Zhou Yang pulled out of the Hong Kong stock market. The remaining real estate stocks that he used more than 600,000 Hong Kong dollars to increase by 17%, driven by Jianing Real Estate.

As long as Zhou Yang adds a little more leverage and reaps a profit of 30%-40%, it will not be a problem at all.

After he transferred his funds to the United States, he combined the performance of the stock and futures accounts, and the yield in the past twenty days was less than 5%, which obviously missed the recent wave of Hong Kong stocks.

Fortunately, Zhou Yang also knew that he was not a real God and could not seize all investment opportunities.

The performance of this past period of time at least made Zhou Yang understand one thing. He is only suitable for controlling the general direction and not for overly specific trading work.

Because of the grasp of details, real-time adjustments are required based on more specific information and more experienced trading experience.

After all, he is not a professional trader. For example, yesterday's increase in position was very amateur and basically bought at the highest point.

Fortunately, the heating oil futures fluctuate very little, otherwise with his full position, as long as he falls slightly worse, he may reach the maintenance line and be asked by the broker to supplement his margin.
Chapter completed!