Chapter 3: Futures Margin, Million Dollar Profit!
Inside the exchange.
A large screen occupied the entire wall, displaying futures market conditions from around the globe. Red and green numbers flickered incessantly, representing price fluctuations.
News tickers scrolled beneath the screen, providing real-time updates on market dynamics and important news.
The traders appeared exceptionally busy, and a tense atmosphere permeated the air.
There was a consultation desk on one side of the hall, where someone was currently asking questions.
In his previous life, Bai Yu had only traded futures twice and wasn’t particularly familiar with it, so he walked over and waited for a while.
“Sir, what can I help you with?”
“I want to open an account.”
“Please go to window number five to open an account.”
“Okay.”
With that, Bai Yu walked over to window number five.
“Excuse me, how much margin do you plan to deposit this time?”
Bai Yu had already made up his mind before coming. He had 250,000 left in his card and decided to put in 200,000 directly!
“Two hundred thousand.”
“Please wait a moment.”
“Mm.”
While waiting, Bai Yu also flipped through some basic knowledge about futures.
Futures can be seen as a contract, for example, three months later, Party A agrees to buy one ton of pork from Party B at a price of 15 yuan/jin.
This type of contract ensures that farmers have a market for their products and allows buyers to lock in future procurement prices.
But why have futures become high-risk financial products?
The core lies in the margin system! The margin system creates a huge leverage effect in futures trading.
The account opening process was quick.
After opening his account, Bai Yu didn’t delay and immediately found a trader to inquire about the current market situation for soybeans.
This trader was a man wearing glasses, who looked quite handsome and refined.
He chatted briefly with Bai Yu and then said, “At your age, you’re still in school, right? You dare to put in 200,000 for your first futures trade? Do you have a mine at home!”
Bai Yu smiled, not denying it. The main reason was that if the trader knew he was an orphan who had gone all-in with his survivor’s benefits, he would definitely try to dissuade him frantically.
Seeing this, the trader didn’t say much more, thinking it was best to just do his job.
Good advice is hard to give to a stubborn fool.
Many people who come here are even less likely to listen to advice.
“Currently, the market price for soybeans is 2.25 Federal Currency/jin. The market expects soybean prices to fall, with the contract price for half a month from now being 2.18 Federal Currency/jin.”
“One lot of contract is one thousand jin of soybeans, which is 2180 Federal Currency.”
“The margin ratio for soybeans is 10.5%. With 200,000 in margin, you can buy 873 lots.”
“Excluding fees and the investor protection fund, I suggest you buy 800 lots, what do you think?”
Bai Yu nodded.
“Okay.”
“Then I’ll help you purchase them?”
“Buy them. I’ll take responsibility if I lose money, I’m not short on cash.”
The trader heard this and smiled, shaking his head.
To be honest, as a trader, he was quite well-informed about various sources of information.
This year, the fourth administrative region, which is South America, harvests soybeans from March to July, and it has the biggest impact on the current market.
Recently, the climate in the fourth administrative region has been quite good, and the soybean-producing areas have had bumper harvests.
Soybean prices are expected to fall.
Engaging in this now has little chance of making money; it’s just newcomers who don’t know anything and are just messing around.
However, he wasn’t familiar with Bai Yu, so he couldn’t proactively provide information. Otherwise, if the soybean price suddenly surged, he might get into trouble!
The trader quickly completed the transaction, and Bai Yu received the confirmation slip, transaction records, and other documents.
The trader also added Bai Yu on WeChat. Bai Yu glanced at the WeChat profile.
Trader – Xiao Chen.
“It looks like a work account.”
Bai Yu looked at the 800 lots of contracts he had obtained, his heart burning with excitement.
What did 800 lots mean? It meant a transaction contract involving nearly 1.8 million. It was nine times his principal!
According to the information provided by his Golden Finger.
On July 25th, the price of soybeans reached a high of 3.61 Federal Currency/jin.
At that time, would the profit he earned only be 1.43/2.18 = 65.6%?
No!
The actual money he would earn would be: 800 lots × 3610 – 2180 Federal Currency/lot = 1,144,000 Federal Currency.
After deducting transaction fees and other additional expenses, he would still have made over a million.
This is futures! Using a principal of 200,000 to earn over a million, this is the charm of leverage.
Of course, this is one side of making money with futures.
But if soybeans fall to 1.93 Federal Currency/jin during this period.
It would become another calculation: Loss = 800 lots × 2180 – 1930 Federal Currency/lot = 200,000 Federal Currency.
In this situation, the margin would be insufficient. If he didn’t continue to deposit margin, his position would be forcibly liquidated.
This would mean his 200,000 would be gone! In severe cases, he could even incur debt.
As soon as he walked out the door, his phone rang.
“Love you at 250°C
Didi pure distilled water~”
【 Eldest Adopted Son 】
“Hello~ Yu Ge.”
“Did you see the message?”
“I saw it. Why are you suddenly taking leave? Aren’t you going to lose your full attendance bonus?”
“Didn’t I say I wanted to play soccer?”
“Bah, I don’t believe you! Every time we play soccer, I have to drag you there. Tell me, is it because of the issue with editing clips for Zhuzhu Baby?”
Hearing this, Bai Yu was taken aback.
Yesterday was Wednesday, his usual day off.
And with his Golden Finger, his mind was focused on it, and he almost forgot that the night before yesterday, he had a small conflict with a female streamer named XinXin Baby at the company over editing clips.
The cause of the incident was simple: this female streamer had a rare funny clip, which Bai Yu edited and posted on his clip account. However, at one point, the beauty filter was missing, exposing her fuller face, which sharp-eyed netizens caught and screenshotted.
Since Bai Yu was responsible for the editing, he didn’t notice this issue.
This woman, upon seeing the ugly photos in the comment section yesterday, was so angry that she went directly to the editing department that afternoon and started yelling.
She found out that Bai Yu was on his scheduled day off on Wednesday!
Reportedly, the scene was quite dramatic at the time.
Later, this female streamer even argued with Bai Yu in the editing department’s group chat.
Bai Yu was completely confused at the time. It was the editing department manager who privately messaged Bai Yu, explained the situation, and told Bai Yu not to argue with that crazy woman.
Since they were discussing female streamers, Bai Yu wanted to ask if that female streamer had recently received tens of thousands in donations.
But he felt that if he asked this, it would be difficult to explain after the car accident.
“Yu Ge, why aren’t you talking? Did Zhuzhu Baby say something too harsh, and you’re feeling down?”
“That’s not it. Before her long rant, I had already blocked her.”
“That’s how it should be. You’re a top student from Tianhai University, and you’re just interning here for fun. You don’t need to tolerate her. Besides, don’t all streamers have haters? She has plenty of unflattering photos offline, and it hasn’t stopped her from finding sugar daddies.”
Zhang Youpeng changed the subject and said, “By the way, about playing soccer, we’ve agreed, right? I’ll go contact the other classmates now.”
“Okay, bye then.”
Just as Bai Yu was about to hang up, Zhang Youpeng hurriedly said, “Wait a minute, there’s one more thing I almost forgot.”
“What is it?”
“Last night when I was at the supermarket, I saw your ex-girlfriend from the Normal University.”
Bai Yu placed his hand on the hang-up button, but the other person seemed to see Bai Yu’s action and said urgently, “Wait, don’t hang up yet. Your ex-girlfriend found a boyfriend, guess who?”
That damned curiosity still made Bai Yu ask.
“Who?”
“A fellow alumnus who interns at our company, the one who likes to keep long hair, named Wu Hao. He’s from the art department. I heard he’s quite wealthy and has good character. Your ex-girlfriend is quite capable.”
“Got it, see you this afternoon, bye.”
“Dudududu~”
Bai Yu decisively hung up the phone.
His ex-girlfriend was quite beautiful.
Especially the photo taken under the cherry blossom tree, wearing a light pink dress, which he still remembered vividly.
At that moment, she was the white moonlight in his heart!
However, the romantic relationships in this world were also mixed with too much materialism.
This ex-girlfriend had a very strong consumption ability. In less than half a year of dating, she spent over 100,000.
And this was during their student days!
He wasn’t some rich guy, so out of rationality, he naturally broke it off.
“Before I had the Golden Finger, I would definitely have been a bit sentimental.”
“If you analyze the root cause of the sentimentality, it’s actually the fear that the next person I find might be even worse.”
“But now… I don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“With just 1 Intelligence Value of information, I can easily earn a large amount of wealth. The future is promising!”
