Manhattan Reborn 1978

new York.

Manhattan, Wall Street.

Stanley fourth floor.

When David stepped out of the elevator, he found his little secretary Maggie Bianchi standing outside the elevator with her head bowed and silent. .

He walked up to Maggie in surprise, waved to the driver Giovanni behind him, and asked.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Isn't it nice when we met yesterday?"

Maggie, the little secretary, looked up at David and bit her lip as if she wanted to say something but said nothing.

David reached out and patted her shoulder, knowing that something must have happened in the company after he left yesterday, which caused the little secretary Maggie to be in this "situation".

But he didn't plan to "get to the bottom of things" from Maggie for the time being. Instead, he led her into his office and asked her to invite the company's management to come over for a meeting first.

Maggie is gone.

David sat behind his desk, thinking about the things he had to do today, and after arranging them in order, he picked up the phone and dialed.

. . .

About ten minutes later.

Sam Rogers, Mu Brandes, and Carolina Dahl, the three company executives sat across from David, waiting for him to finish the call.

David smiled at the phone that was on speakerphone.

"Expectation, literally speaking, means advance expectation or expectation."

“Expectations have a very important impact on investors’ behavior and decisions!”

"For example: people's expectations for inflation will cause inflation to have a kind of inertia, causing it to rush rapidly in the direction that people least want to see, and never return."

"Ultra-high inflation rates will cause prices and unemployment rates to rise again and again, and will also gradually change people's future income expectations and life expectations."

"That's why psychologists who have conducted in-depth research on the expectancy effect have concluded..."

"Disappointment = psychological expectation - reality!"

"Joy = reality - psychological expectation..."

“If reality matches expectations, it will strengthen the power and credibility of expectations.”

"If expectations are good but reality is inconsistent, it will cause cognitive dissonance in people and change their usual behavior."

David tapped the armrest of the seat with his fingers, glanced at the three Sams, and continued with a smile to Carnes, Bill and Odis Parker on the other end of the phone.

“Last time I was in London, I said that I would choose the right time to build momentum for the rise of gold prices in the markets of New York and Chicago~”

"Now, the time has come."

"I'm going to start by changing people's psychological expectations about investment..."

"As for how to implement it specifically, I will ask Maggie to compile a piece of information dictated by me later and send it to you. I won't go into details here~"

"After you read it, if you don't understand some key details, we can contact you to discuss it again."

"Okay~" Kanes on the other end of the phone answered the phone with a brisk tone in his voice.

"I plan to fly to Xiangjiang in a few days. I'll let Bill continue to keep an eye on me here. Do you want to come over and play with me?"

"Xiangjiang?"

"Sorry, I can't go yet..." David tilted his head and glanced at Maggie standing at the door, and said.

"But I am going to let Cui Yingying return to Xiangjiang. If you want to find a reliable guide in Xiangjiang, she can provide you with some help."

"Cui Yingying?" Kanes smiled on the phone.

"You and her..."

"Hey~ now is not the time for gossip."

"If you have any questions in your mind, you can ask her directly then."

"Hahaha~ ok, ok!"

"Then I'll hang up first."

"We will contact you after I go to see little Peter and confirm the next step."

"Ok!"

Hang up.

David picked up the pen from the table and said to Sam and Mu Brandes while writing.

"Our plan to buy stocks will be temporarily suspended today."

"Mu, I need you to write an analysis of the future gold price trend for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times."

"Do you have any acquaintances at these two newspapers?"

"Uh... yes!" Mu Brandes hesitated for a few seconds and nodded.

"I know several reporters from both newspapers who would be willing to help."

"Hmm~"

David pushed the note he wrote in front of Sam and smiled.

"Synergy! (Can be translated as: synergy or synergy effect.)"

"This word shouldn't be unfamiliar to you, right?"

“What I want is for people or companies to work together to produce better results than if they acted alone!”

“We are in New York and Chicago, Carnes will go to Hong Kong and Tokyo, and Peter is responsible for London, Paris and other places in Europe. We will make a common voice to the market at the same time, which will have the effect of 1+1 greater than 2! "

"Understood~" Mu Brandes nodded in understanding, put away the note paper, and prepared to go back and plan carefully, and write a "little essay" in the newspaper about investing in gold and getting more than expected returns. .

David smiled and told him to wait, turned to look at Sam, and said.

"Contact a few more futures market makers and entrust them to open long positions in the gold futures market."

"Ok."

"What about the month and quantity for opening a position?" Sam asked with a twinkle in his eye.

David scratched his chin with his hand, shrugged with a strange smile.

"I will open a long position for all the remaining months of this year!"

"However, in order to hedge investment risks, we will open a short position in next year's forward gold futures contract!"

"Forehead.."

“Short next year?”

"But not yet..."

"I know~ don't rush this yet."

David picked up the pen again and wrote something on a piece of paper.

"I want to go long in front-month gold futures so that I can get more gold spot goods from the market that can be delivered at any time!"

"With these long gold futures orders, I never thought of engaging in price speculation trading!"

David handed the finished note to Sam and smiled.

"So no matter who wants to short gold futures, I am willing to trade with him and get the gold spot delivered by him to reserve as hard currency for investment."

"As for the quantity you might be worried about..."

David looked at Carolina Dahl, the administrative director who has always been "transparent" in the company, and asked with a smile.

"Some of your old friends in Chase Bank can help us with gold mortgage loans... right?"

"Yeah." Carolina Dahl, an elite career woman with short hair who is over 1.8 meters tall and has very tough facial lines, said no nonsense, pursed her lips and nodded.

Sam and Mu Brandes looked at each other and looked at David neatly, with surprise in their eyes.

David saw the two people's expressions and waved to them: "If Bernard Madoff is in New York, please ask him to have lunch for me."

"If you have any questions, let's talk about it during lunch."

"...Okay!" Sam and the two took the notes and left.

Maggie, the little secretary, also followed behind the two of them and left.

When David saw that he and Carolina Dahl were the only ones left in the office, he smiled and relaxed in his chair and asked.

"Do you know the difference between fog and haze?"

"...??" Although Karolina knew that she and David would eventually "confess" one day.

But she had no idea that David would start the conversation with this question.

She thought about it seriously and said, "Fog is a meteorological phenomenon formed by the condensation of water vapor."

"Haze is a polluting meteorological phenomenon."

"That's right!"

David raised his hand and pointed out the window: "In a low-temperature, high-humidity environment, water vapor in the air will cool and condense into small water droplets, and these water droplets will be suspended in the air to form fog."

"Fog usually appears in the early morning and evening, because the surface temperature is lower at this time and water vapor in the air condenses more easily."

"Smog is formed by a mixture of particulate matter and chemicals in the air."

"These particulate matter and chemicals mainly come from emissions from vehicle emissions, industrial production, coal burning and other human activities. They combine with water vapor in the atmosphere to form smog."

"Smog usually appears in highly industrialized areas such as cities, which has a serious impact on people's health and the environment."

"After the first industrial revolution, London was called the Smog City because it was shrouded in haze and fog all year round, which brought a lot of trouble to the people living in London."

“The Clean Air Act introduced in California a few years ago is to strengthen environmental protection supervision, reduce vehicle use and other measures to reduce pollutant emissions and reduce the occurrence of smog.”

"But~"

"Although fog and haze are different meteorological phenomena, they are also related."

"Fog is more likely to form when there is higher moisture content in the air, and haze is more likely to form when there are higher concentrations of particulate matter and chemicals in the air."

"The most direct and simple way for people to tell them apart is through smell!"

"Smog usually has some pungent odors that can make people feel short of breath or sting their eyes."

"Ordinary mist will not cause this uncomfortable feeling."

"This should be the biggest difference between them."

David carefully observed the micro-expression on Carolina's face, took out a written letter from the drawer, placed it in front of her and smiled.

"My mentor, Professor Bartlet, will arrive in New York in the afternoon."

"He and Professor Paul Samuelson have made an appointment to have dinner tonight, and I will accompany him throughout the whole process."

"If Grandpa David Rockefeller Sr. is free tonight..."

Carolina Dahl picked up the envelope, stood up and nodded: "I will give you an accurate answer as soon as possible."

"Ok~Thank you!"

"It should be..."

David watched her turn around and walk to the door of the office, and suddenly said again: "Please call Maggie for me, thank you!"

"Ok!"

Carolina Dahl, gone.

Maggie, the little secretary, quietly closed the office door, looked at the dazed boss David with worried eyes, and waited quietly.

A few minutes later.

David just "recovered" from his thoughts, waved his hand to Maggie and smiled.

"Please help me contact attorney George McCarran and accountant Pitman Olina. I want to see them as soon as possible."

"Okay." Maggie stood there and waited for a few seconds. She found that after David finished speaking, he lowered his head and remained silent. She turned around quietly, closed the door, and left.

----

Manhattan.

At the intersection of Twelfth Avenue and 40th Street, there is a small company building.

Polly stood by her office window, looking at the slowly flowing Hudson River in the distance, her eyes showing confusion~

The words David said to her this morning once again caused many questions and thoughts about the future in her mind.

Desire + opportunity = rapid expansion?

Desire-Strength=Anxiety?

Opportunity + strength = success?

Reality - Overconfidence = Overexpectations?

Reasonable expected planning + reality = successful case?

How to evaluate strength?

Opportunities, how to seize them?

How cruel is reality?

How to adjust expectations to be reasonable?

How to define confidence and overconfidence?

Your own deepest desires. . What is it?

Will it make you become another person?

Is the price you have to pay for this worth it?

And~

David seemed to mean those words before sending her to the car. .

"The Butterfly Effect refers to a dynamic system in which small changes in initial conditions can drive long-term huge chain reactions of the entire system."

"It can be used in more complex systems such as weather and stock markets that are difficult to predict within a certain period of time."

“This effect shows that the results of the development of things are extremely sensitive to initial conditions!”

"Small deviations from the initial conditions will cause huge differences in the results."

"A good, tiny mechanism, as long as it is guided correctly, will produce a sensational effect after a period of hard work."

"The butterfly effect often appears in chaos theory, so there is no possibility of a grandmother's paradox."

Polly rubbed her eyebrows with her hands, closed her eyes and tried to remember and think. .

She didn't understand why David said these strange things to her, and what he wanted to explain. .

But she could see David's trust in her from his sincere eyes. .

That is a kind of unreserved and all-consuming trust!

But it was this kind of trust that Polly herself felt was a bit "too much" that gave David's "weird words" a layer of "color" that Polly couldn't understand~

. . .

"Dang Dang Dang~"

"Come in!" A knock on the door brought Polly out of her thoughts.

She turned to look at Andrew Deverein (Andy), the company's financial director, who came in, and asked with a smile.

"Are you done?"

"How is that possible..." Andy shrugged humorously, put a pile of financial statements on the table, and joked.

"If you don't send us more manpower, I can't guarantee it before the tax filing season."

"Ok!"

"Jiaren, I will join you tomorrow!"

"Oh?" Andy asked, holding his glasses in his hand and looking at Polly in surprise.

"Are you ready to recruit new people for our finance department?"

"Of course... no." Polly saw Andy's face turning from sunny to gloomy, and she quickly explained with a smile.

"David said that Ervin, the financial director of their company, has recently completed preparations for the tax filing season."

"So he can come over and help you temporarily..."

"Erwin?"

Andy put on his glasses, raised his eyebrows and smiled: "That boy hasn't called me for a long time."

"is it?"

Polly felt that she heard some "sourness" in Andy's words, and smiled. .

"He is now the financial person in charge of a large Wall Street company. The amount of funds he handles every day is in the millions or tens of millions. It is understandable that he cannot spare the time to call you~"

"Haha~"

Andy laughed dryly at Polly's far-fetched explanation and ridicule, then opened the financial statements and talked about business.

"As of yesterday, the sales volume of turkey sandwich breakfast packs at da's affordable stores has exceeded our initial expectations."

"If we estimate based on the current sales volume, all the turkeys in stock will be sold in about nine days."

"Nine days?"

"So fast?"

"Yeah~" Andy glanced at Polly who was looking happy and smiled.

"The experiment proposed by Mr. Zhang Maochang to make sandwich patties with fish meat should be completed in nine days, right?"

"At that time, it will just be enough to replace our sold-out turkeys and become a breakfast bag..."

"Hahaha~ It doesn't take nine days!" Polly continued with a smile.

"I talked with Cui Yingying this morning. She said that the experiment of making meat patties with fish meat is not difficult at all. It can be done by tomorrow at the latest!"

“What we need to consider now is which fishing company we should place an order with so that we can further reduce our costs and increase our profits!”

"Oh~" Andy put his hand on his eyes and smiled.

"Then I also need to prepare a sum for you in advance. Is there a signing fee?"

"Yes!"

Polly quickly calmed down her excitement, jotted down the incident in a memo, and signaled Andy to continue talking.

Andy selectively skipped this financial report and looked at the next one.

"Recently, due to the continued increase in wholesale fruit prices in winter, the amount of juice used in free cocktails at our nightclub has been increasing."

"Vincent Martino (Vince), the person in charge of the nightclub, called me and wanted me to help him ask you if you can suspend the promotion of free juice cocktails to reduce costs."

"...No!" Polly quickly shook her head after thinking about it.

"David mentioned to me this morning... the importance of strategic brand positioning."

"The nightclub provides customers with a free cocktail. This is our initial plan to attract customers at a discount. It has certain brand positioning attributes and can attract more people who like to take advantage of small advantages to come and patronize."

"And among these people, the largest number are low-income young people and students who are already working."

“We give these young people a free cocktail that costs only a few tens of cents. Not only will they quickly remember the characteristics of our nightclub, but it will also make our nightclub safer and more popular. Remember faster and more deeply, increasing psychological expectations and consumption inertia.”

Polly shrugged at Andy, who was frowning in thought, and smiled.

"Expectation? Inertia?"

"What did you hear from that boy David again?"

Andy opened the work memo notebook next to him and joked while taking notes in it.

"Only you will believe his theories that sound weird, right?"

"Haha~" Polly shook her head and smiled without saying a word.

Polly might have had doubts before about whether these so-called theories could work. .

But now, she has gradually understood the "weird" words David once said.

For example: "Habitual consumption habits" + "subtly increasing customer expectations" + "loss aversion" = I would rather buy the wrong thing than let it go. .

ps: Here, I would like to apologize to everyone!

Recently, at the end of the year, I almost "drowned" in a sea of ​​alcohol with various parties and drinking parties. .

I've been drunk for two days in a row and I can't stand it anymore. I just felt better this afternoon. .

Thank you for your support and your understanding!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

May the new year be healthy, safe and happy!