After reading the column article that lasted more than ten pages, Eric chatted with Chris on the phone for another half an hour. He hung up his phone and was sitting in front of the computer thinking about the problems he might face in the next period of time. A knock on the door came in his ears.

Looking up, Cindy stood at the door and looked at his expression, and said with concern: "Eric, what happened?"

Eric leaned back a little in the leather chair and spread his hands towards Cindy. Then the woman walked in and leaned in his arms with a smile.

Gently stroking Cindy's slightly raised belly, Eric's chin stumbled against her shoulder and felt the seductive fragrance of a woman, saying, "Why don't you take a little longer?"

"It's already eight o'clock," Cindy pulled her face and put on Eric's side face, saying, "Breakfast is ready."

Eric then looked at the time in the lower right corner of the computer monitor, but did not get up and said, "Linda will live here during this period. She can still help take care of you."

"Well, she has actually moved here," Cindy nodded, stood up and pulled Eric up, and said, "Let's go to have a meal first, I still have work in the morning."

Eric opened his mouth, but did not continue to persuade Cindy to stop working. Anyway, the recording of the new season of "American Supermodel Contest" will be completed next month, and Cindy can stop and take maternity leave until the end of the year when the little guy is born.

After a simple wash, Eric and Cindy came to the restaurant together. Linda, who was wearing only a light pink T-shirt with two long legs exposed, was placing breakfast. Seeing Eric and Cindy come in, she didn't forget to look at Eric because of what happened last night, and then thoughtfully helped Cindy open a chair.

Eric sat down at the dining table, just picked up the tableware, and remembered another thing to the two women: "I will go to Australia in early August. The Firefly System executives' gathering is planned to be held there this year. Do you want to come together?"

"It's winter in Australia right now?" Linda immediately shook her head and said, "I won't go, I'm afraid of the cold."

Cindy immediately remembered that Virginia and the others were still in Australia, and Eric arranged the party there, which must be a reason for this. At this time, the man said he wanted to take them both, obviously intending to push them to the front of the stage.

If you can confirm your identity in front of the core executives of the Firefly System, it will be of great benefit to both herself and the child in her belly. However, after hesitating for a moment, Cindy shook her head and said, "Forget it, I'm not suitable for airplanes now, and Linda and I have been working on several projects recently, so I can't get away."

Eric nodded: "That's it, let's talk about it next time."

Linda reacted at this time. When she heard Cindy not to go, she couldn't speak anymore, but just sneaked into her flat belly, and there was a little resentment in her eyes.

After breakfast, Eric first sent Cindy and Linda to work in the production company, and then rushed to the Firefly Investment Headquarters.

It was already nine o'clock when Eric came to the office area of ​​Firefly Investment Company's Building 50 Building, Rockefeller Center. Under the guidance of the staff, he pushed the door and walked into a conference room. He found Chris leaning against the wide conference table alone, staring at a wall-mounted TV on the wall.

When he noticed Eric's arrival, Chris nodded and greeted him, and immediately pointed at the TV screen.

Eric had already recognized the figure of a middle-aged judge on the TV screen that he had seen in the video a few days ago.

Coming to Chris, leaning side by side with him at the conference table, Thomas Jackson on the screen was interviewed by CNN and showing the host a few pages of the documents: "... After this period of evidence collection, we can 100% be sure that Microsoft has very serious monopoly behavior. In my opinion, only by splitting Microsoft and implementing stricter controls can this company be avoided from further hindering normal competition in the industry..."

Listening to the middle-aged judge talking with the CNN host, Eric raised his hand and looked at the watch. It was already 9:15, and there were only 15 minutes left before the opening of the Nasdaq.

Chris noticed Eric's actions and said, "It's too late now. Even if some people react, it's impossible to respond effectively."

Eric nodded in approval, understanding Chris's meaning.

According to some statistics on the weekend, the cumulative short positions of trading markets around the world shorted the Nasdaq index will be conservatively estimated to not be less than US$60 billion. Such a large-scale capital force is accumulating a blow, and the stock market in any country in the world will be unbearable.

However, the current total market value of stocks in the Nasdaq market has reached 9 trillion US dollars. Naturally, investors will not hope that such a huge amount of wealth will disappear with the stock market collapse. Therefore, if the layout of short-selling forces can be expected in advance, they can definitely make an effective counterattack.

However, too many people are immersed in the joy of the Nasdaq index just breaking through 5,000 points, and are not alert enough to the trend of the recent days.

Eric had anticipated these in advance, but the Firefly system had no intention of making a first bird, let alone such strength. The collapse of the Nasdaq index that had become bubbled is inevitable. Going against the trend will only be crushed to pieces.

Eric and Chris looked at the situation calmly in the conference room of Firefly Investment, but for the securities industry, it was destined to be a peaceful day.

With the rapid spread of remarks made by Microsoft's antitrust case judge Thomas Jackson in an interview with CNN, coupled with a series of narcotics and theories over the weekend, whether it was planning or premonition of the crisis, stock managers distributed in North America and around the world clearly found that today they received much more instructions to sell technology stocks than before.

Finally, at 9:30 am, the Nasdaq Index had just opened, and a one-time stock order of more than $1 billion directly hit Microsoft's stock price by more than 3 percentage points.

But this is far from over. Within the following hour, almost all major technology stocks such as Yahoo, Cisco, Intel, and Amazon in the Nasdaq stock market ushered in huge sell orders.

After the demand for buying technology stocks that are far from hedging the scale of selling in the market was quickly offset, large stock orders began to squeeze, continuously lowering the stock prices of major technology stocks.

So, panic began to spread.

More investors who received the news began to join the sell-off ranks and quickly formed a terrifying domino effect.

At 4:00 pm Eastern Time, the Nasdaq finally closed at 4,960, down 9%. However, a series of mainstream technology stocks sold largely suffered heavy losses.

Microsoft's stock price fell by 3% in a single day.

Cisco's stock price fell 6% in a single day.

Yahoo's stock price fell by 5% in a single day.

Intel's stock price fell by 9%.

Amazon's stock price fell 6% in a single day.

...

However, behind this series, the decline numbers representing the dissipation of tens of billions of dollars of wealth is just the beginning.

At the same time, facing the bleak Nasdaq market, Wall Street once again fully demonstrated its unruly side.

Last week, major investment bank analysts who were hyping up a new high of 6,000 points last week changed their tone and almost devalued the investment value of technology stocks.

In the following four trading days, the chain reaction caused by the stock market collapse further fermented, and the Nasdaq index fell by more than 100 points every day.

Although all new technology companies have tried to stabilize the Nasdaq index through various means, the results have been minimal.

Because a large number of investors are unscrupulously using investment leverage in order to maximize profits during the last crazy period of Nasdaq, this also greatly reduces the ability of these investors to resist risks.

The general investment leverage of about five to ten times makes investors only able to withstand a decline of about 10% to 20% of a certain stock.

But in fact, many stocks often fall by more than 10% within one day.

As the situation continues to deteriorate, whether to sell stocks can even be decided independently by investors. In order to avoid losses reaching a level that they cannot bear, many financing institutions that provide financial guarantees for leveraged investors have to forcefully close the stocks in their hands. Large orders flow to the market, further causing a vicious cycle of stock price decline.

On July 23, the nightmare week of the new technology market finally ended, and the Nasdaq closed at 4373 points, down 5% from the peak of 5056 points last week, and the wealth of more than $1 trillion disappeared.

A series of leading technology stocks that led the Nasdaq market in the early stage generally fell more than the entire Nasdaq market.

Influenced by Thomas Jackson's remarks on Monday, Microsoft's stock price fell by 7% in five days, and its market value fell sharply from its highest point of more than $600 billion to $469.9 billion.

Cisco, which has just ranked first in the world's market value, fell by 9% in a week, and its market value has fallen all the way to US$453.1 billion.

Yahoo, which Eric has always paid the most attention, also fell by 5% in five days, but this is within Eric's tolerance range, and the company's market value remains above US$200 billion, reaching US$215.5 billion.

The share prices of other companies such as Amazon, sprint, and Qualcomm in the Firefly System have all experienced declines to varying degrees.

In comparison, Nokia, which was listed at the same time in multiple stock trading markets such as North America and Europe, was least affected by the Nasdaq collapse. Coupled with its solid performance support, its stock price fell by only 9% compared to last week at the close of Friday.

In the evening, Bill Gates, who had been in a state of turmoil for a whole week due to Thomas Jackson's statement on Monday, rushed to Manhattan and headed all the way to Eric's penthouse at the entrance of Sixth Avenue.

When Bill Gates saw the figure sitting leisurely beside the seat of the open-air garden on the rooftop, with his legs raised and reading newspapers while drinking coffee, he felt depressed.

Due to Microsoft's success, he should be one of the proudest people in the world with huge wealth, but in front of this young man, Bill Gates always finds a sense of superiority.

Sitting down in a chair without hesitation, Bill Gates glanced at the newspaper in Eric's hand and said, "Eric, you'd better give me a reason to satisfy me."

Eric folded the newspaper and placed it in front of him, poured a cup of coffee for the classmate at the gate, pointed to the direction of the Hudson River not far away, and smiled: "Suddenly I felt that a firework should be set up recently, so I bought a boat and it started at eight o'clock."

Bill Gates did not meet the coffee in front of him, subconsciously helped his glasses and said, "Eric, don't you think this is boring?"

"Okay," Eric put away his expression, but he still looked helpless, saying, "We talk about serious business, the situation is not good now. Yahoo needs some good news, and Microsoft is the same, so, what are we going to cooperate with?"

Bill Gates showed a look of contempt: "What about?"

Eric handed a folder to Bill Gates, then opened the laptop next to him and said, "I have already prepared the contract. But let's take a look at this first, you will definitely be interested. Well, it's a bit long, so let's just look at it from here."

Eric said, adjusting the progress bar, turning the laptop screen to the door, and pressing the play button.

A familiar voice from Bill Gates immediately came out of the speakers.

“It is a serious violation of judicial proceedings to make such an out-of-court trial statement in public, and it is likely to ruin my career. So, $2 million is simply not enough, and if it succeeds, you need to pay me another $3 million.”

"Thomas, you're so greedy. $2 million is already a huge sum of money."

"Don't think I don't understand these, Dean, according to your short size, if the Nasdaq collapses, you can make at least a few billion dollars. So, that's not negotiable."

After a moment of silence in the video, another voice rang out again: "Okay, I promise you."

Eric looked at Bill Gates' wider and wider eyes opposite him, and reached out and closed the laptop with a snap, picked it up and took it back.

As if he was woken up from his sleep, Bill Gates suddenly raised his head and glared at Eric fiercely. He realized his current situation again in a blink of an eye. He put away his expression and said, "Eric, it is illegal for you to do this."

Eric pointed to the door and shrugged, "If you are not interested, then take your own care."

Bill Gates swallowed, and stalemateed Eric for a moment, but picked up the folder he had just handed over and opened it.

After rummaging through it quickly, Bill Gates quickly put it down and said, "It is OK to give up that equity subscription contract. But Yahoo Browser continues to enjoy its original status on the Microsoft platform, which is simply impossible."

"I never thought of such a good thing," Eric said. "You definitely didn't read it carefully. Yahoo can pay Microsoft a pre-installation fee of $1 for each operating system."

"But that's just about less than $50 million a year, Eric, if it were you, would you?"

"Of course I don't want to," Eric patted the laptop in front of him: "So, this is Yahoo's compensation for Microsoft."

"This video doesn't necessarily help Microsoft," Bill Gates pretended to be disdainful: "Once it is exposed, it may even have a counterproductive effect."

"So, so far, people who have watched this video and you have just put together a hand," Eric said. "I've been thinking about this issue recently. Standing in our position, it's often difficult to do something as I want. Too often, we have to compromise. Just like this video, my first idea was to expose it and then stand by and watch the fun. But then I realized that not exposing it seems to bring more benefits. Of course, this is for Microsoft, Fireflies can't use this thing."

Bill Gates narrowed his eyes: "Eric, are you hinting me to threaten the Justice Department?"

"It's just a negotiation," Eric shrugged: "Microsoft is now a victim, even a persecutor. So even the president has to compromise. You know, Clinton can't stand another political storm now. But the situation is that a middle-aged judge caused the entire Nasdaq market to collapse for his own selfish interests, and trillions of dollars of wealth disappeared like fireworks. I heard this week
Chapter completed!