Chinese billionaire Xiang Guangda, head of Chinese pig iron maker Tsingshan Holding Group, made some awful trades selling short nickel and STACKED LOSSES of greater than $8b according to some people familiar with the matter. As a result, the LME hasn’t traded nickel since last Tuesday in order for him to secure financing and preventing even greater losses, in what can be viewed as one of the biggest short squeezes of all time.
Since the LME stopped worldwide trading for him, Tsingshan secured financing from JP Morgan and China Construction Bank.
LME’s reasoning:
“Clearly these are unprecedented times and they have called for us to take action we would not wish to have taken,” LME Chief Executive Matthew Chamberlain said. “We faced a choice between ensuring the overall and longer-term financial stability of the market, and the shorter-term trading profits of those participants who had traded on Tuesday morning.” In a statement, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority said it was in close contact with the LME and other relevant parties.
If this doesn’t convince you that markets are rigged in favor of the very rich then nothing will. Think of all the plebs who went long nickel on the legitimate concerns that the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia would cause a severe supply shock and now think how he feels right now knowing the LME and several major institutions are actively trying to walk the price of nickel down in order to protect an idiot billionaire speculator.
In the totally non rigged Shanghai markets on Friday, nickel traded limit down 17% to $35,000. The last trade on the LME was $48,078/mt, down from a session high $101,000. Trading was supposed to resume on Friday, but didn’t happen likely due to fears of another short squeeze.
Disgusting.
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Weren’t you once cheated on a VIX trade? Maybe it was UVXY but I think I recall them changing the rules to benefit the house maybe a couple of years ago and some got screwed even though they were positioned correctly.
F them and their unprecedented times BS. Truth is, the stocked markets are rigged to an unknown extent as well. A few years ago, Dole Foods was reorganized, with all shares being called in. Turns out brokerage accounts held 25% more shares than had ever been issued. How did that happen? Where was the investigation? Who was responsible? I believe they magically made the accounts whole and swept the whole thing under the rug as if nothing had happened.
Just be aware, things are not always what they seem.
Did our public watchdog SEC analyze the whole market to see how widespread this was? Not that I know of.
If there ever is a market shtf moment, we could see what unprecedented times really look like.
Covid and now Russia is the new “Twinkie defense” to justify absolutely anything.
China oligarth operations in the west becoming precarious?
Fuck Xiang
And fuck China