接着说一说《红色通缉》。上次说到比尔·克劳德作为一个在俄罗斯投资的外国人，抓住了东欧和俄罗斯由计划经济转型的机会，投资了一系列被人低估的公司股票获得了巨大收益。但很快也遭遇了俄罗斯特有的经济寡头。这些寡头有的很多是转型于前苏元时期的政治特权阶级，他们对市场经济的规律并不尊重，仍然信奉强权和权力。那一套市场经济讲的就是共赢双赢。尽管而布劳德经过调研之后，投资的一家石油天然气公司的实际控制者就是这样一位寡头。尽管他拥有这家公司大部分的股票，因为股价的上涨获益甚丰。作者通过仔细的调查研究，也从这家公司的股价上获得了不小的收益，但是和寡头相比，那就只能是九牛一毛了。但尽管如此，因为这个寡头没有资本主义市场经济那种互利共赢的思想，认为一个毫不相干的外国人，通过敏锐的投资嗅觉和调查研究的能力，就能从自己这里分走一杯羹，而感到无法忍受。他决定教训一下作者，也就是比尔克劳德，他增发了股票，但是明确禁止克劳德的基金进行购买，稀释他的股票。侵蚀他的利润。比尔克尔德亲自拜访了这位寡头并提出谈判交涉。结果。他傲慢的回应，说让你们蒙受损失，就是这次增发股票的目的。于是作者选择和他开战。
所有人都认为，俄罗斯的法治完全不值得信赖。俄罗斯人只相信强权和权力。和这样权势熏天的人作对的人，都很可能会直接被肉体消灭，风险巨大，基金的投资人纷纷准备认赔，息事宁人。但作者决定保护自己投资者的利益和他斗到底。他主要依靠的就是向俄罗斯监管部门举报，并证明对方违法。也许是由于在那个时期寡头和官僚机构的勾结还没有严密起来，或者是因为俄罗斯政治势力内部的派系斗争，双方并不属于同一阵营，结果监管当局支持了布劳德的诉求，那位寡头不得不承认失败，收回了限制布劳德基金购买增发股票的条件。于是，作者在华尔街和西方金融圈中，成为敢于挑战俄罗斯寡头并成功的人在金融圈名声鹊起，基金的规模也越做越大。
直到一九九八年，亚洲金融危机的到来，多年来，在东欧和俄罗斯投资成功的经历给予了他过多的自信。尽管那个曾经帮助他启动事业的金主提醒过他，要防范亚洲金融危机扩散到俄罗斯的风险。但他认为，俄罗斯和东南亚几乎没有什么经贸关系不会受到波及。但这次他错了，全球化时代，资本就像洋流一样，可以在全世界流动，没有人能够独善其身。俄罗斯的股市也开始暴跌，这给作者带来很大的压力。不过好在俄罗斯股市的下跌速度足够快，在短短的时间内就跌去了将近九成。当一只基金下跌百分之三十到百分之四十的时候，所有的投资人都会惊慌失措，想尽快赎回抽身，保住剩下的本金。但当基金净值跌去百分之九十的时候，人们反而都认命了，会抱着侥幸的心理。看一看这些已经差不多死翘翘的股票会不会有翻身的那一天。
股市的惨淡是投资人开始转向投资俄罗斯发行的政府债券。因为债券被认为是比股票风险更低、收益更稳定的投资品。不过，俄罗斯在苏联解体进行休克疗法，将国有企业私有化之后，但并没有削减福利开支。俄罗斯政府发行了大量的债券，当经济危机袭来之后，市场上对债券的安全性也不再信任，为了能够继续发债。俄罗斯政府一面提高利率，这导致已经发行的债券价格大跌。另一方面，向国际货币基金组织求援，但是俄国人对权力根深蒂固的执念，使得第一次向IMF贷款的行动。因为IMF派出的官员和俄罗斯总理的级别不对等而被遭到拒绝啊，谈判搁浅。这进一步打击了俄罗斯的国债价格，可以说碰到了股债双杀的局面。
比尔克劳德在俄罗斯投资陷入了近乎绝望的境地，资产价格下跌了近九成。基金基本上可以宣布死亡了。
其实我看这本书中的很多情节对照现实还是很有参照意义的。毕竟中国也是和俄罗斯一样，从计划经济转型过来的国家。虽然两国之间的转型路径完全不同，俄罗斯选择休克疗法，中国是渐进式改革。其实朱镕基主导的国企改革大下岗也相当于休克疗法，但很多问题还是有共性的，甚至是俄罗斯的很多问题的暴露比我们更早。对中国的形势更有预见性。比如现在中国的股市表现就非常的糟糕。当然，中国的股市在经济好的时候也没有表现过有多强，所以现在的投资者也更加青睐于投资国债类，而央行也顺势推出了所谓五十年的长期国债，但是这些国债真的就更安全吗？在经济危机的极端情况下，俄罗斯国债在九八年亚洲金融危机中的表现仅给出了否定的答案。
Let's move on to Red Wanted. Last time we talked about Bill Crowder as a foreign investor in Russia who took advantage of the transition from a planned economy in Eastern Europe and Russia and made huge gains by investing in a series of undervalued companies. But it soon ran up against Russia's own peculiar economic oligarchs. Many of these oligarchs were political privileged members of the pre-Soviet period who did not respect the laws of the market economy and still believed in power and power. That set of market economy is all about win-win. Despite Browder's research, one of the oil and gas companies he invested in was actually controlled by such an oligarch. Although he owns most of the stock in the company, he has benefited greatly from the rising stock price. Through careful research, the author also made a small profit from the company's share price, but compared with the oligarch, it is only a drop in the bucket. But despite this, because this oligarch does not have the idea of mutual benefit and win-win of the capitalist market economy, he thinks that an unrelated foreigner, through his keen sense of investment and the ability to research, can take a share of his own, and he feels unbearable. He decided to teach the author, Bill Crowder, a lesson by issuing additional shares, but explicitly forbidding Crowder's fund to buy, diluting his shares. Eat into his profits. Birkeld personally visited the oligarch and offered to negotiate. Results. His arrogant response, saying that making you suffer, is the purpose of this additional share issue. So the author chose to fight him.
Everyone agrees that the rule of law in Russia is utterly untrustworthy. Russians believe only in power and power. People who oppose such powerful people are likely to be directly destroyed by the body, the risk is huge, and the investors of the fund are ready to accept the loss and settle the matter. But the author decided to protect the interests of his investors and fight him to the end. He relied mainly on reporting to Russian regulators and proving that they had broken the law. Perhaps because the oligarch and the bureaucracy were not yet closely aligned at the time, or because the two sides were not on the same side of the political spectrum in Russia, the regulator sided with Browder, and the oligarch had to concede defeat and withdraw the conditions that had restricted Browder's fund from buying additional shares. As a result, in Wall Street and Western financial circles, the author became a person who dared to challenge the Russian oligarchs and succeeded in the financial circle, and the scale of the fund became bigger and bigger.
Until 1998, when the Asian financial crisis arrived, years of successful investments in Eastern Europe and Russia gave him too much confidence. That was despite warnings from the financial backer who had helped launch his business about the risk of the Asian financial crisis spreading to Russia. But he believes there are few economic ties between Russia and Southeast Asia that will not be affected. But this time he is wrong, in the era of globalization, capital like ocean currents, can flow around the world, no one can be immune. Russia's stock market also began to plummet, which put a lot of pressure on the author. But the Russian stock market fell fast enough, losing nearly 90% of its value in a short period of time. When a fund drops 30 to 40 percent, all investors panic and want to get out as quickly as possible to save what's left. But when the net value of the fund fell by 90%, people accepted their fate and would hold the psychology of luck. Let's see if these stocks, which are already pretty much dead, will turn around someday.
The stock market's woes are a sign that investors are turning to Russian government bonds. Bonds are considered less risky and more stable than stocks. However, after the shock therapy of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the privatization of state-owned enterprises, Russia has not cut welfare spending. The Russian government issued a large number of bonds, and when the economic crisis hit, the market no longer trusted the safety of the bonds, in order to be able to continue to issue debt. The Russian government raised interest rates, causing the price of bonds already issued to plunge. The International Monetary Fund, on the other hand, was asked for help, but the Russians' deep-seated obsession with power led to the first IMF loan. The talks ran aground because the officials sent by the IMF were not of equal rank to the Russian prime minister. This has further hit the price of Russian national debt, which can be said to have hit a double kill situation.
Bill Crowder's investments in Russia are in a near-desperate situation, with asset prices falling by nearly 90%. The fund can basically be declared dead.
In fact, I think many of the plots in this book are very meaningful to compare with reality. After all, China, like Russia, is a country that has transitioned from a planned economy. While the path of transition between the two countries is completely different, Russia opted for shock therapy and China for gradual reform. In fact, Zhu Rongji's SOE reform and lay-offs are also equivalent to shock therapy, but many of the problems are still common, and even many of Russia's problems were exposed earlier than ours. More prescient about the situation in China. For example, the performance of the Chinese stock market is very bad. Of course, China's stock market did not perform well in the good times, so investors now prefer to invest in Treasury bonds, and the central bank has also launched the so-called 50-year long-term Treasury bonds, but these bonds are really safer? At the extreme of the economic crisis, the performance of Russian government bonds in the Asian financial crisis of 1998 gives only a negative answer.
