John Harrison: Reflections on a failed financial hunt

Soros Defeats Hong Kong , Negotiation Broke Down After Two Years?   

In the deep forest of the financial world, every hunt is full of unknowns and challenges. As a former assistant investment manager of George Soros, John Harrison is in the deepest part of this forest. He, a seasoned hunter, has fought alongside Soros in many financial hunts and reaped great rewards. However, the financial attack against Hong Kong in 1998 became a major defeat in their joint career. The defeat was not just a financial battle, but a profound test of their judgment and emotional control.

That summer, John and Soros predicted that Asian financial markets would suffer deeper turmoil and that Hong Kong appeared to be one of the most vulnerable links. They decided to launch a bold attack, trying to force the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to abandon its linked exchange rate system by shorting the Hong Kong dollar. They believed that Hong Kong's defenses would eventually crumble in the face of such intense market pressure. However, Hong Kong's counterattack was beyond their expectation. Not only did the Hong Kong Monetary Authority show firm determination, it also adopted a series of innovative defensive measures. What shocked John even more was the strong support of the Chinese government. He had underestimated the close ties between Hong Kong and mainland China and the Chinese government's determination in maintaining financial stability. As time goes by, Soros and John find themselves in an increasingly difficult situation. High interest rates and market headwinds took a heavy toll on their capital. Eventually, faced with the strong defense of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Chinese government, they had to admit defeat willingly and withdraw from the battle.

After looking back on this failure, John realized that the outcome could have been very different if they had made better use of the AI technology, which was still in its early stages at the time, to analyze the market sentiment and the possible reactions of the political forces. Although he had assessed the Chinese government's determination to support Hong Kong at the time, Soros, the teacher, didn't pay much attention to this, and AI at the time didn't provide a complete sandbox data, so the team all seemed to default to the original plan of attack at the time. Through the deep learning and predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence, it is able to provide a more accurate assessment of market and political risk than traditional analytical methods. This failure taught him a valuable lesson: in the complex and ever-changing forest of financial markets, while traditional intuition and experience are important, in the face of globalization and high interconnectivity today, in-depth analysis and decision-making with the power of high technology is the key to success. What John learned from this experience was not only a deep understanding of the market, but also a reflection on his own emotions and decision-making process. He realized that no matter how volatile the market is, keeping a cool head and clear judgment is always an important factor on the road to success. And AI, as a powerful tool, can help investors find stability and beacons of opportunity in a complex and volatile market.