Chapter 61: Post-Market Review

Returning to Dormitory 308, Zhang Yang found that apart from Chen Chuan, the "nest-dwelling youth," Wang Liu and Xu Jiafeng were both out.

Chen Chuan was watching a movie starring "Teacher Bobo" on his laptop. Glancing sideways as Zhang Yang opened the door and walked in, he was stunned for half a second before asking in confusion, "Dorm head, didn't you go to Hangzhou? Why are you back so soon?"

Although Shanghai wasn't particularly far from Hangzhou, a round trip would still take about five or six hours. It was only four in the afternoon now; which friend could he possibly have seen so quickly?

Could it be that he just went there, said hello, and came right back?

Chen Chuan couldn't figure it out.

"I just had a meal with a friend. Where are Liu Zi and the others?" Zhang Yang asked casually, then walked over to the lower bunk of his bed and opened the laptop placed on his desk.

In the year 2009, stock trading still had its limitations, making it impossible to check the market and trade anytime, anywhere.

Having been out running errands today, Zhang Yang hadn't even gotten the chance to check the market, let alone trade stocks. His Nokia 3250 could only load some simple text-based webpages at the moment.

"They're in the Badminton Club. It seems they're organizing a mixer party with some other clubs recently, running around busy as mules."

Chen Chuan had never joined any clubs; he was a standard shut-in.

Zhang Yang had indeed joined the Go Club, but he quit during his sophomore year because he didn't like the club's atmosphere, as both the president and vice-president were fond of playing bureaucratic games.

"So that's how it is," Zhang Yang acknowledged, then sat down to check the market conditions.

Today, the Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.11%. It opened lower in the morning session and dipped, with the banking sector leading the decline as the lowest point hit 2,422.79.

However, starting from 1:42 PM, securities moved first, fiercely resisting the pullback in banking, which drove sectors like coal, consumer goods, and automobiles to rebound collectively. This pulled the broader market upward to a peak of 2,474.15 points, ultimately closing at 2,463.95.

It wasn't hard to see that the recent sharp declines were all caused by the pullback in the banking sector.

What did the banking sector mean to the A-share market?

Four words: the stabilizing anchor!

As long as banking didn't fall, the Shanghai Composite Index basically couldn't drop much. But if it had "the runs," it could easily drag the entire broader market down with it.

This was somewhat similar to Bitcoin in later generations: as long as it dropped, the entire crypto world would be hit with a bloodbath.

This was also why many technical analysts in the A-share market liked to keep a close eye on the banking and securities sectors.

"The banking sector is dragging everyone down by taking the lead again," Zhang Yang thought to himself.

Looking at it now, if one wanted to catch the main upward wave, they had to wait for banking to stop falling and pay special attention to any positive news related to banks.

Afterward, Zhang Yang opened his securities account's portfolio page to check today's returns. China Yangtze Power rose by 2.61%, bringing the total value of the stocks to 42,812.2 yuan.

China Shenhua, which had suffered a sharp pullback yesterday and locked Zhang Yang in with a 6.77% drop, also turned red, closing up 1.85% today for a total of 690.6 yuan. Currently, the total return on this stock was -5.04%, with a loss of 2,017.1 yuan.

Combining the returns of these two stocks, Zhang Yang not only didn't lose money, but he even made a small profit of 800 yuan.

As for ST Zhongfangji, it hit a direct 5% limit down, with the opening price being the closing price, and its technical pattern gave Zhang Yang a whiff of danger.

On the 22nd, which was yesterday, when it formed an upper shadow line, he had already sensed a hint of crisis. He had planned to dump it directly the next day if it opened lower, but because of the delay, he ended up catching the limit-down board, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't continue falling limit-down tomorrow.

Currently, ST Zhongfangji still had an unrealized profit of 3,368.1 yuan, with a gain of 16.84%. As long as he could get out tomorrow, Zhang Yang would still be in the green.

...

After briefly reviewing today's market trends, Zhang Yang logged into Tencent QQ to handle his thriving market research report business.

He approved all pending applications to join the general group, bringing the member count to 744, even though most of them were just there to rubberneck.

As for the membership applications for the VIP research report group, Zhang Yang thought about it and approved them all as well. However, after doing so, he renamed the VIP research report group to "VIP Research Report Transit Group" and created a brand new VIP research report group.

Then, based on the notes in the online banking transfer records, he added people one by one.

Before long.

The new VIP research report group had 134 members.

[Little Steamed Bun]: Bigshot Joker must be done with his busywork by now. What's your outlook on tomorrow's market trend?

[Crazy Cowboy]: Banking fell so fiercely in the morning session today. After I cut my losses, it bounced back up a bit. I wonder if I'm going to miss out on the rally.

[Baby Doesn't Eat Candy]: Bigshot Joker, can you predict tomorrow's trend? I've lost nearly twenty to thirty thousand over the past two days.

Since Zhang Yang had promised to issue early warnings during the trading session, but genuinely couldn't spare the time today, he had asked for leave from the group members in advance.

Seeing the messages in the group, Zhang Yang didn't stay silent and comforted them, saying, "There are no obvious bearish news items at present. The broader market pulling back over the past two days is probably because it rose too much and needs time to digest. Everyone can rest easy."

After Zhang Yang's message was sent out, quite a few group members breathed a sigh of relief.

At the 2,463-point level, actually, many people had started developing a fear of heights, considering that half a year ago, the Shanghai index had dipped to 1,800 points.

Zhang Yang didn't look at the group messages anymore. Instead, he scrolled back to the main QQ page and noticed that Xu Zhiruo had sent him a "you there?" message at eleven o'clock in the morning.

Out of classmates' politeness, he replied, "I'm here, what's up?", and then proceeded to reply to other friends' direct messages one by one. After clearing his schedule, he went to organize the existing market research reports.

...

Meanwhile.

In the Investment Studies women's dormitory building.

Just as He Jing reached the stairway landing, Xu Zhiruo, Lan Sisi, and Wei Yunshi—six eyes in total—were all staring fixedly at her.

"Whoa!"

This sudden scene startled He Jing. She subconsciously took a step back and asked, "What are you guys doing here?"

"Mmm~"

"Mmm~"

"Mmm~"

The three of them made meaningful humming sounds, their gazes toward He Jing seeming to say: Who would have thought you were hiding so deep.

"Who in Dorm 201 doesn't know that Zhang Yang is the man I like? Sister Jing, you actually seduced him; you're cheating behind my back." Xu Zhiruo pouted, half-jokingly.

"Are you dating him?" Lan Sisi raised an eyebrow and asked.

Although they all knew Xu Zhiruo had feelings for Zhang Yang, they also knew there hadn't been any substantive progress between the two.

"No wonder you've been coming home early and leaving late lately; turns out you've been all cuddled up with Zhang Yang. I couldn't tell," Wei Yunshi smiled and said.

"..."

At this moment, He Jing was caught right in a mental storm. What made her even more awkward was that other female students were secretly gossiping nearby.

To save herself from embarrassment, she pulled the three of them back into the dormitory and then confessed, "It's not what you guys think..."

"The three of us saw it with our own eyes. You were secretly meeting with Zhang Yang just now," Lan Sisi directly interrupted.

"I went to collect my payment." He Jing handed the black plastic bag to Lan Sisi and then recounted the entire course of events.

The black plastic bag was untied, and the wrapping newspaper was unpeeled. Sure enough, it was twenty thousand yuan.

When a guy gives a girl a gift, he probably wouldn't do it in such a simple and crude manner. The three of them believed the authenticity of He Jing's words.

Upon seeing the two stacks of cash, Wei Yunshi suddenly understood and said, "In other words, you and Zhang Yang aren't dating?"

"No."

He Jing answered very crisply.

"Phew—"

Xu Zhiruo let out a sigh of relief, patted her own head, and said, "Good thing I wasn't two-timed, otherwise if it got out, it wouldn't be good for my reputation."

"Rorom don't flatter yourself, Zhang Yang hasn't even dated you yet."

"Unrequited love is a disease, it needs curing."

Lan Sisi and Wei Yunshi spoke up one after the other.

Taking back the twenty thousand yuan from Lan Sisi's hands, He Jing wrapped it up in the newspaper again, planning to find time to go deposit it in the bank.

Xu Zhiruo, standing aside, managed to catch the useful information. Ignoring her roommates' taunts, she looked at He Jing and asked, "Sister Jing, you mentioned just now that Zhang Yang wants to start a finance-related website?"