"Big Short": A deal worth waiting for a lifetime

Deron 2021-10-19 10:14:35

Nine years have passed since the subprime mortgage crisis. With the hot screening of the movie "Big Short", people have begun to discuss this topic again. The author has finished reading the original work very early, and now I follow the trend to write a film review that is not a film review. I don’t talk about the plot and performance of the film, but only talk about the characters, background and story of the decisive battle. This is not only a review of the past, but more importantly. It is to strengthen the judgment of the general trend in the current confusing and confusing macro environment to avoid falling into the trap of conformity.

1. Who is the real big short?

The four short-selling subprime teams in the movie "Big Short" are: ① Michael Burry, fund manager of Scion Capital; ② Greg Lippmann, a trader at Deutsche Bank, whose name was changed in the movie. Jared Vannett ③ Steve Eisman of FrontPoint Partners LLC, renamed Mark Baum in the movie ④ Jamie Mai, Charlie Ledley and Ben Hockett of Cornwall Capital.

What is the final benefit of these four people? Michael Burry's fund earned US$750 million for investors in 2007 with a scale of 600 million; Greg Lippmann is not an investor, but a trader and market maker of the short-selling tool CDS. He received a bonus of US$47 million in 2007. ; Cornwall Capital of the two boys Jamie and Charlie made a profit of 80 million US dollars, which is not large, but considering that they only have 30 million US dollars in principal, this return is also very impressive; how much money Steve Eisman made is not disclosed specifically, but His fund has a maximum size of US$1.5 billion, and the fund's income in 2007 and 2008 should be similar to or slightly less than that of Burry's fund. Taken together, the four men and horses made a total of less than 2 billion U.S. dollars.

US$2 billion is an astronomical figure in the eyes of ordinary people, especially when it was realized in 2007, when it was all over the place, but in fact, US$2 billion is only a fraction of the money made by the real "big short" John Paulson. As the largest short position in history, Paulson's fund company Paulson & Co. made 12 billion US dollars by shorting CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) in 2007, and made more than 8 billion US dollars by shorting banks in 2008. In addition, some other investors in the hedge fund field have also made short-term profits in a low-key manner. For example, Philip Falcone of Harbinger Capital Partners also listened to Greg Lippmann’s explanation and promotion of CDS. Contrary to the continuous questioning and shouting of Jared Vannett by the Mark Baum team in the movie, Falcone immediately bought a large amount of CDS over 1 billion US dollars. The 2007 returns of the two major funds exceeded 100%. In addition, the investment guru Soros, through his nephew Peter Soros (who is a friend of Paulson), asked Paulson for lunch. After learning about his investment ideas, he also began to short subprime mortgages. He also made a profit in the three months at the end of 2007. Billion dollars. The following picture shows the performance of major hedge funds in 2007 (considering the size, statistics are incomplete), the products marked in yellow are Paulson&Co.'s products.




John Paulson's entire process of shorting subprime mortgages is described in detail in "The Greatest Trade Ever". The entire process of shorting is a "hypothesis-demonstration-financing-betting-waiting-harvesting". , Is a classic hedge fund operation process. Paulson's profit of tens of billions of dollars is not luck or accident, but a step-by-step process of planning for the operation. The biggest short in history this time can actually start with a simple chart.



2. A chart worth 20 billion U.S. dollars

Before the subprime mortgage crisis, John Paulson was a shameless hedge fund manager who had been away from Wall Street for a long time. He did not set up his own fund until he was close to 40 years old. After 10 years of stumbling, the company’s assets under management reached US$1.5 billion in 2003. In terms of scale, it can only be regarded as an unknown person. It is also difficult to see the shadow of a hedge fund boss in Paulson. He travels in economy class, sits in the back row for research, and is respectful when asking questions to listed companies. He got married for the first time at the age of 45, and his target was his female assistant. Whether compared to the many talented young men on Wall Street, or to the big hedge fund tycoon who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, Paulson looks unknown. Unlike Steve Eisman's long-term immersion in the subprime mortgage bond industry, Paulson's fund company mainly engaged in mergers and acquisitions in the early stage, and had little involvement in real estate. Before his old friend Paolo Pellegrini called him the job search, Paulson was concerned about the real estate bubble. His understanding was limited to selling his Southampton house in 2004 when housing prices soared and changing it to a rented house.

Paolo Pellegrini is a classmate of John Paulson at Harvard Business School, and his personal experience has been tortuous. Before joining Paulson & Co., Pellegrini had been divorced twice and fired twice. Apart from the $300,000 from the divorce, he had almost no savings. Paulson can only offer him a position as a junior analyst, but he is still grateful. He wakes up every day and is greedy for the dark, doing analysis and research in the cubicle like his colleague who is 20 years younger. In October 2004, Pellegrini stopped Paulson in the corridor and suggested to him for the first time that he should use a perfect tool called CDS (Credit Default Swap) to short US real estate.




For a mature investor, any heavy bet needs to consider two factors: certainty and return ratio. For the former, a solid and strict fundamental analysis is required, and for the latter, timing and tools need to be considered. U.S. real estate prices have not fallen across the country since the Great Depression. "House prices will always rise" is popular (sounds familiar?). Before the subprime mortgage crisis, few people dared to say that U.S. housing prices would fall, let alone Place a heavy bet to short it.

In order to test his hypothesis, Pellegrini and colleagues did a lot of basic research, and the final summary result is a simple chart: the U.S. housing price index excluding inflation since 1975. Pellegrini found that from 1975 to 2000, after excluding inflation, the annual increase in house prices was only 1.4%, but in the next five years, the annual increase was 7%. If they return to the trend line, the possible adjustment of house prices is the largest. It can reach 40%. This picture laid the fundamental basis for Paulson & Co. to short the US real estate market. Paulson regarded this chart as his "Rosetta Stone", so much so that it was printed out and shown to his clients like a treasure all day long (after the short selling, of course).

The



above picture is the trend chart of US housing prices since 1970. The blue line is excluding inflation, and the red line is excluding inflation. The trend is very obvious. This priceless chart does not require high-level data. I believe that before subprime mortgages, a large number of professional researchers have drawn and stared at this chart. The well-known best-selling book "Irrational Exuberance" was revised in February 2005. It gave sufficient data and made a clear warning of the rise in housing prices after 2000. However, too many people succumbed to the trend and lost Common sense. Even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, directly claimed in public, "We've never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis." (We have never experienced a nationwide decline in house prices). You know, Ben Bernanke is an expert on the Great Depression, standing in the position of the highest macro-management, and should have a full view of the risks, but he is aware of what is happening in the market, such as the over-extension of loans driven by the interests of mortgage companies. The people’s aggressive leverage, Wall Street investment bank’s crazy packaged transactions, and rating agencies’ eyes closed. They still don’t know enough, and eventually misjudgments occurred. In China, many people regard the central bank governor’s speech as a golden rule, such as the leverage ratio of the central government and residential departments, the ratio of debt defaults and bad bank debts, the risk control behind debt-to-equity swaps, etc. The central bank can see from a macro perspective. What you get is only part of the whole picture, and there will definitely be deviations or even errors. There is no doubt that it is very dangerous to accept it in full.




Behind the above-mentioned chart, which is hailed as "US$20 billion", is the result of a 48-year-old "old" analyst who has done basic research on academics, government documents and market data day and night. In contrast, many domestic Institutional analysts basically do not do research when they are 35 years old, relying on research reports from interns and sellers, which means a strong contrast. The same chart is invaluable in the hands of people who know it, but worthless in the hands of people who don't. There are too many charts like this that obviously reflect a certain market distortion in China, such as debt, leverage, M2, housing prices, etc., and so on, but domestic investors have seen this kind of chart are numb, even No wonder, we can't deny the difference in China's national conditions, but the more we face things that everyone is accustomed to, such as "xx always rises", the more we should maintain awe and vigilance.

3. How does short selling become a great business?

Short selling is a very dangerous thing. The reason lies in the lack of appropriate tools, which leads to an extremely mismatched risk and return. Therefore, on the short-selling death list, there is never a shortage of successful bosses, eager adventurers and falling at dawn. Pioneer before. The shorts who made a lot of money in the subprime mortgage crisis are largely grateful to CDS, a risk-return financial tool that is almost perfect. Take the new fund issued by Paulson as an example. With a principal of 1 billion US dollars, you can purchase 12 billion US dollars of BBB-level CDS products, but instead of paying 12 billion US dollars, you pay 1% of the 12 billion US dollars in premiums each year, 1.2 Billion US dollars, and this new fund can get 5% interest from the bank before payment, that is, 50 million US dollars of interest. In this way, only 70 million US dollars will be spent in the first year, plus an annual commission of 10 million US dollars. The maximum annual loss is 8% (80 million U.S. dollars), but in theory, it can earn 1200% (all BBB bonds default and CDS pays all).

"This is the best deal ever!" Paulson shouted excitedly at his subordinates.

In the process of shorting house prices, the easiest way is to sell your own house and rent a house, but this is also the least cost-effective method. If the house price drops by 20%, if you buy it back, plus transaction costs, you may only gain 15%; if the house price rises by 20%, you buy it back, plus the transaction costs, you will lose more than 25%, which is obviously not a good deal. . But what’s interesting is that most of the short sellers from all walks of life live in rented houses. Paolo Pellegrini can’t afford to buy a house in New York. When he first joined Paulson&Co., the 48-year-old middle-aged man who graduated from HBS could only afford to rent. A one-room household; after John Paulson sold his house in Hampton in 2004, he found that the house had risen too fast to buy it, so he rented it. Jamie Mai and Charlie Ledley have been renting a house. Ben Hockett, played by Brad Pitt, found that his house had risen to $1 million, but if it was rented out, the rent was only $2,500 a month, and the annual rent-to-sale ratio exceeded 30 times, so he also sold it. , And then rented an apartment to live in. It is conceivable that these people who are bearish on housing prices are so ecstatic when they see CDS such a tool of "compensating 8% for the wrong and earning 1200% for the right" tool.

Michael Burry was the first to discover this risk-benefit distortion tool. After Greg Lippmann saw Burry’s actions, he went through a rigorous analysis (Xu Youyu, a graduate of Fudan University, played a major role in the analysis process, which is the belt in the movie. The Chinese who went to the road show with Greg wearing glasses) immediately knew that CDS had a fatal appeal to customers who were really short on the US real estate market, so they began to create this product on a large scale and sell it to customers who knew it. During the entire financial crisis, Greg Lippmann’s team created a total of 35 billion US dollars in CDS, which earned Deutsche Bank huge transaction fees. In addition, Deutsche Bank itself held about 5 billion CDS positions. Short positions will make Deutsche Bank’s financial crisis even more ugly. Two young men, Jamie and Charlie, in September 2006, looked at Greg Lippmann's CDS promotional materials sent by a friend (in the movie, they looked at materials thrown away by others in the JPMorgan lobby). They had nothing to do with the mortgage business. Known to him, he feels "too good to be true".

Jamie and Charlie in "Big Short"


Jamie and Charlie have such a sense of smell, it is related to their short but thrilling investment experience. These two young people with almost no investment experience founded Cornwall Capital (Brownfield Capital in the movie) in a garage in Berkeley, California in 2003, with an initial capital of only 110,000 US dollars. Cornwall Capital’s investment philosophy (if any) is to look for investment opportunities where returns and risks are seriously mismatched. For example, their first major transaction: buying a call option from a company called Capital One Financial. At that time, the company was in the midst of accusations of covering up its losses, and its stock price fell by 60% within two days, hovering at around $30. After careful and in-depth research, they believe that the company's potential risks are exaggerated. If the company falsifies, the stock price should fall to $0. If the company does not falsify, the stock price should return to $60. They believe that the probability of not falsifying is more than 50%. At that time, the option of "purchase Capital One Financial stock at any time within the next two and a half years for 40 US dollars" was priced at only 3 US dollars, so Cornwall Capital immediately bought 8,000 shares at a cost of 26,000 US dollars (relative to their 110,000 US dollars The initial cost, the position is not low). Soon after, the negative news about Capital One Financial began to fade, and the $26,000 option rose to $526,000.

After that, Cornwall Capital began to look for transactions with very small bets and big odds. From European distressed companies, Korean stocks, pork, ethanol gasoline, Thai baht, etc., the investment range is very wide. By 2005, the accumulated wealth had reached 12 million U.S. dollars. By 2006, when they began to short subprime loans, the principal had reached 30 million U.S. dollars, and the rate of return was amazing! The investment ideas of Jamie and Charlie focused on the fat tail effect of the bell curve, and the unreasonable option pricing in this context, and the ideas of Nassim Taleb (author of "Black Swan") and Didier Sornette (provider of the Dragon King theory) There is a certain fit. Of course, at that time, Jamie and Charlie were still fledgling and unconfident young people. With excitement and shaking hands, they looked at the smooth marble floor of the investment bank lobby and the brightly dressed Wall Street elites like a pilgrimage. What I realized is that those with an IQ education background far surpassed their counterparties, and in a maddening environment, they were actually much stupid than they thought.


4. Fundraising, the starting line of the game is

supported by the fundamentals and tools, it should be hands-on! But before that, Paulson still has an important problem to be solved, and that is: financing. For a hedge fund, investment ability and fund-raising ability are the right-hands of the core competitiveness. Paulson is quite talented in this area, mainly because he can explain complex and advanced strategies and approachable, but until June 2006, the new fund had a total of Only after raising 147 million US dollars, after several months of hard work, with the participation of big investors such as Peter Soros, the new fund finally raised 700 million US dollars, plus the funds previously managed by the company, which can be used for short positions. The grain and grass loaned have reached billions of dollars, and then they have the ability to hold up to 25 billion dollars in CDS contracts.

Among the four groups of "Big Short", Michael Burry has the biggest difficulty in financing. If investment and financing are left and right hands, then Burry's right hand can be said to be a congenital disability. Michael Burry is actually the first person in the United States to short subprime mortgages, leading the market by a lot. In fact, Greg Lippmann was inspired by Burry (in the movie, Greg heard the news that Burry bought CDS from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs on Wall Street in the nightclub) and began to sell CDS on a large scale, and sold a total of 35 billion US dollars of CDS before and after. (5 billion of which are held in Deutsche Bank's own account), almost all the big players who short subprime loans are influenced by Lippmann. Therefore, Greg Lippmann is regarded as the "top advocate", but Burry is the well-deserved creator of CDS trading. But this pioneer, in the process of short selling, did not talk to customers like Paulson, but responded to customers’ queries in a tougher way. At this point, Burry did not penetrate the "investor-trustee" issue. The nature of this trust business model should be said to be failing. Before the bubble burst, Burry continued to reduce his valuable CDS position under the pressure of customers, which is a pity. In the end, even though Scion Capital brought customers 489.34% of the total revenue during its operation, Burry closed the fund in 2008 and became a private investor with a performance commission of 100 million US dollars. For him, perhaps Is the best destination.

Michael Burry always looks bitter


What's interesting is that Burry admires Munger very much, and Munger's attitude towards short-selling is "We don't like to trade painfully for money." But in the face of this historic opportunity, it is difficult to hold back the heart. Among the four groups of "Big Short", the only ones who trade with principal are the two young men, Jamie and Charlie. Therefore, they do not need to face the pressure of fundraising, but the principal is relatively less by one or even two. Two orders of magnitude. Paulson is able to earn the combined profits of other teams. One is that he has more principal, and a large number of customers are fighting alongside him in the face of the first historic trading opportunity of this century; the other is that he is determined to be short, and there is nothing in the movie. The protagonist’s compassionate attitude (in fact, most of them are just film beautification), Paulson even cooperated with investment banks to create more CDOs for short selling (up to 5 billion US dollars). In Hollywood, which is dominated by the left, this is a heinous crime. That's why Paulson, the actual biggest short, could not be included in the movie, and could only appear as a typical negative in "Inside Job".


5. Opponents are not necessarily all paper tigers

When all the players have placed heavy bets, all that is left is to wait and suffer. Systematics tells us that an object with very high momentum has to undergo very fierce resistance to change its original trend, and it takes longer to turn its head. The pretty pen and ink in "Big Short" describes the scene before the crisis broke out: the default rate has risen dramatically, housing prices have begun to turn heads, but the shorts still can't make money because the entire system is still fighting for the last time. This resistance is so strong that many people involved in the short-selling began to doubt themselves, "Am I wrong? Does the market know something we don't know?" As a seller, Greg Lippmann understands customer psychology. Arranged for them to go to Las Vegas to meet their counterparties. In the casino, Lippmann has contracted a Japanese food shop’s sizzling grill restaurant with a total of 4 barbecue stations. Each station has a hedge fund manager who sells subprime loans and an investor who sells CDS (long bonds). Lippmann hopes that customers can understand how crazy and stupid the whole system is through direct dialogue. The Chinese person who confronts Steve Eisman at the table is called Wing Chau (Wing Chau), always with raised eyebrows and beating unpredictably. The position is the CDO manager of Harding Consulting. There is no doubt that his ending is Customers lost almost all their money. Later, when it was released, Zhao Wen went to sue Steve Eisman and the author of "Big Short", accusing them of portraying him into a liar with no professional ethics.

In the movie, Mark Baum and his colleagues went to the rating agency to question, and got a very speechless response. The other party's tone of "Which unit do you belong to?" made Mark Baum deeply understand that Wall Street at this time has been Mortgage bonds are all kidnapped. Under the background music of "House prices are always rising", common sense and risks are left behind. Making money is the kingly way. It is not uncommon for rating agencies to lose justice in any country. Take a few domestic bonds that have recently defaulted as an example. The rating of China Railway Property Bond before the suspension of trading was AA+, the rating of 15 Huayu CP001 before the default was AA, and the rating of 15 Dong Special Steel CP001 before the default was AA, and the ratings of the latter two are currently at All became D after breach of contract. Will domestic rating agencies give real ratings to bonds guaranteed by local governments or central enterprises? I think it's difficult, there is nothing new under the sun.

Buffett once said, "In the 238-year history of the United States, who have benefited from those who are short-sellers?" Although this sentence was said in 2015, it is actually enough to make short-selling at every stage (not to undermine the United States). ) The bears are frightened. According to PerTrac’s statistics, 13,675 hedge funds and thousands of other types of investment institutions have obtained the license to invest in CDS, but in the case of Greg Lippmann’s crazy roadshow, only 100 institutions have set foot in CDS, most of which are for Hedge the real estate in your hands. Only a very small number of people, greater than 10 and less than 20, directly bet on the collapse of the real estate market. This small group of people is by no means waiting to be wiped out every day. The opponents they face are essentially powerful machines such as the government, banks, the Federal Reserve, and rating agencies. They will never know that the opponents can do it. What's the move, 1 vs. All, the terrifying and distressing scenes reflected in the movie, are very real.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke had a conversation that was not a joke:

Paulson: "I went to see Greenspan the other day and asked him about the solution to the collapse of housing prices."
Bernanke: "What method?"
Paulson: "The most effective method is for the state to directly buy the defaulted house and burn it on fire."
Bernanke: "..."

Of course the government will not adopt this method, but this is not a completely unfounded proposal. We might as well make a absurd but interesting hypothesis. If the US government also has a strong ability to intervene in the economy, when the subprime mortgage crisis breaks out Can they take the following measures to avoid the spread of the crisis, or even the emergence of a crisis? 1. In areas where housing prices have plummeted or are not rising, such as California, land supply is stopped. Private land? It is possible to directly legislate to prohibit residents' private land from entering the real estate market, and the developer implements the pre-sale certificate system, and it is strictly forbidden to lower the opening price at will. 2. Debt-to-equity swaps for companies such as Lehman, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual Bank, etc., and the establishment of bondholder committees, and cannot withdraw capital or draw loans at will. 3. Call on migrant workers from Mexico who smuggled into the city to buy a house and buy a house with a green card. 4. Further reduce the down payment ratio, reduce inventory nationwide, encourage further leverage, and encourage enterprises to increase it if residents cannot increase it. The logic is correct. The down payment is already zero? Then it is implemented to buy a house to deduct tax, mortgage to deduct a tax, to buy a house to deduct an enterprise's income tax, and so on. 5. Directly provide mortgage subsidies to defaulters, and it will not cost a few dollars. If the federal finance has no money, it will further expand the deficit. 6. Cut interest rates and never raise interest rates. If the CPI rises, it will be better. 3% inflation can be maintained for 5 years, which can offset 15% of the corporate sector’s debt. If the public complains about prices, then adjust the CPI structure, such as lowering the United States. If the proportion of low-to-medium service staff's salary to CPI is too low, then sampling can be done at a fixed point. "Anyway, the pork next to the US Bureau of Statistics is cheaper than what you bought."

If all these are implemented, will American house prices fall? Will the subprime mortgage crisis break out? I don’t know. History cannot assume that these are all joking words, but we at least understand that if we want to maintain asset prices, a “big government” can do much more than a “small government”, even if The price is against the spirit of the market and financial discipline. We have no way to know whether the history of the United States will be different, but at the moment, we have at least one sample that can be directly observed. In this sample, M2 will exceed the sum of the United States and Europe in June, and the total debt is still in double digits or even 20. % Of the speed is soaring, and the housing prices in first-tier cities have completely surpassed New York and Tokyo. We don’t know what the ending will be. But as ordinary people, we can only passively go long. The best position is just observation. However, while observing, keep in mind two points: 1. Try not to stand opposite an almost omnipotent opponent, especially if there is no perfect tool, they are real tigers; 2. At the turning point of the megatrend Even if you don’t have the ability or opportunity to stand on the right side, at least don’t bet your entire life and stand on the wrong side.



6. The transaction

that waits for a lifetime. When all the hidden debts and problems are exposed to the world, for the big shorts, it is the time to get rich returns. For ordinary Americans and even people in other countries, the nightmare has just begun. The film did not render the joy of the shorts after winning, but rather a heavy expression. This is the artistic and political needs of popular films. There is a detail that is not in the movie, which is impressive. An employee of Paulson&Co. called to inquire about the latest ABX price. The other party told him that it had fallen by 5% in the morning. The company’s people were stunned because Paulson would make a profit for every 1% drop. To 250 million US dollars, 5% in a morning means 1.25 billion US dollars earned. In just a few hours, it surpassed the sum of the profits Soros made by shorting the British pound that year. This is the right return.

For Paulson, this influential fund manager finally completed his "transaction of a lifetime" and earned $20 billion in profits for his clients in two years. This is the result of Paulson's step-by-step completion of "Assumption-Argument-Fundraising-Betting-Waiting-Harvesting". Money is only a reasonable return after this series of correct actions. When Paolo Pellegrini was on vacation, his wife checked the bank card and found that the card had an extra 45 million dollars. His 2007 bonus was as high as 175 million dollars. The value of hard research and correct judgment has been reflected in him. Of course, 2008 was the beginning of Paulson's infamy, but in the eyes of the biggest bearer in history, there are probably only right and wrong, not right and wrong.

After the crisis, many people think about how to survive the crisis as ordinary people? In fact, many people ask this question and many people answer it, but the answer is hardly correct. The correct answer is: there is almost no way. Take the subprime mortgage crisis as an example. In 2006, at least tens of thousands of Americans, including real estate agents, loan reviewers, and increasingly stressed buyers, smelled the coming crisis, but these people did not Ways to directly short the US real estate market. CDS will not be sold on the open market at all, and ordinary investors can't even touch the threshold. In "Big Short", Jamie and Charlie called Ben Hockett to ask Ben Hockett to come out. They needed his help to solve the ISDA threshold problem (International Swaps and Derivatives Association), otherwise they would not be able to directly trade CDS. Wall Capital’s capital of 30 million US dollars on Wall Street is like a drop of water dripping on a 70 ℃ asphalt road, and no one will care if it evaporates instantly. If they did not accidentally see Greg Lippmann’s CDS promotional materials, they would also invest like ordinary investments. The same, long after the financial crisis passed, the existence of such a thing as CDS did not become known. Ordinary people, in fact, can do very little under the circumstances. But this does not mean that we can not pay attention to macro events and understand what is happening in this world.

In seven to eighty years of life, what can be tossed is about 40 years, starting at the age of 20 and ending at the age of 60. During these 40 years, a person will inevitably encounter one or more major macro events. For the past 40 years The Chinese have encountered a lot of macro events, such as Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the sea after his southern tour in 1992, the layoffs of state-owned enterprises in 1997, the rise of manufacturing after WTO, the real estate bull market spawned by demographic dividends and urbanization, and the birth of world factories. The commodity bull market, and so on. In major macro events, the opportunities for people are unprecedented, but if in a negative cycle, the destruction to people is also incalculable. Haitong Jiang Chao wrote an article a few days ago. He talked about a Taiwanese client who said that real estate is a big cycle, and one cycle takes 20 years. Therefore, people generally can only encounter two real estate cycles in their life, and the tragedy is There is usually no money for the first time, so after the second time, you must not miss it. In fact, the reason is very simple. Life needs to follow the trend. After seeing the macro background, it is easier to make rational choices. Maybe we can't win every time, but at least we can not stand on the losing side.

Finally, use the words of Mark Twain at the beginning of a "Big Short" movie to us in this unprecedented era: It is not the unknown that makes you trouble, but the things you are sure of are not what you think. I hope that every reader can feel the surging of the times and be able to take advantage of the trend and ride the waves.





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Extended Reading

The Big Short quotes

  • Casey: What am I supposed to do? Write a piece called "We're all fucked"?

    Charlie Geller: Yes! That's a perfect title!

  • Vinnie Daniel: How are you fucking us?

    Jared Vennett: When you come for the payday, I'm gonna rip your eyes out. I'm gonna make a fortune. The good news is Vinnie, you're not going to care cause you're gonna make so much money. That's what I get out of it. Wanna know what you get out of it? You get the ice cream, the hot fudge, the banana and the nuts. Right now I get the sprinkles, and ya - if this goes thru, I get the cherry. But you get the sundae Vinny. You get the sundae.

    Vinnie Daniel: All right. I buy that. Thank you.