Housing prices in Manhattan, and even the entire New York City area, have been falling for several months.

It was not until the following year that Americans saw the determination of the White House that they re-established their confidence in Manhattan and the New York City area.

Thinking of this, Abel thought that when the time came, he could let Xinqidian Real Estate go shopping in Manhattan after that incident.

Abel planned to purchase the Woolworth Building directly in his own name.

Although you have to pay a certain amount of local taxes every year, you can spend US$1.6 billion in one go.

Such a large amount of profit will be turned into investment. It will be easier when preparing a new tax return.

The two of them chatted about Smith Capital while drinking their favorite coffee.

Smith Capital did not launch a big action without Abel.

Its appeal to investors in the market is actually not very strong.

Because investors originally came to Smith Capital because Abel could provide them with high profits.

Without this relationship, Smith Capital would not have much advantage compared with other Wall Street giants.

On the contrary, it is at a huge disadvantage due to factors such as brand, channel, transaction point, etc.

Not all of the more than 20,000 vice presidents at Goldman Sachs stay in New York.

Most of them are spread throughout the United States and even the world.

To put it simply, these old giants have a large number of branches.

These branches attract a huge number of customers.

Smith Capital does not have this.

The only investors it can currently attract are investors from around New York.

There are also some rich people who come from the name of Mu Abel.

This also makes Smith Capital, except for those few private equity funds with Abel as the fund manager.

Other financial products and investment products are seriously not attractive to customers.

David Mellon has no good solution to this situation.

We can only take it one step at a time, after establishing a firm foothold in New York.

In the future, business locations and branches will be added one after another in other cities.

After thinking about it, Abel made a suggestion:

“Maybe we could add a money fund?”

"Money fund?" David Mellon said:

"Forehead, among our financial products, there are already monetary funds."

Speaking of monetary funds, the first thing that Chinese rabbits think of is probably "Yue'E ​​Bao".

But in fact, money funds were not the first creation of Lao Ma.

It has appeared in the 1970s and 1980s.

From the early 1970s to the 1980s.

The United States is in a "stagflation" environment of economic recession and high inflation.

That was an era when the Soviet Union was strong and the United States was weak, and the Soviet Union attacked and the United States defended.

The strong red bear makes the European and American world tremble with fear.

At that time, in the United States, even capitalist newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal were "fixing, analyzing, and questioning" and "America, please wait for your people", and they all suspected that the line was wrong.

Due to economic problems, the Federal Reserve at that time controlled bank deposit interest rates.

This makes residents' deposit interest rates even lower than the inflation rate, and deposits have been in a state of depreciation.

At that time, inflation in the United States reached over 20% at its peak.

At that time, in order to attract funds, banks launched large time deposit certificates with interest rates higher than the inflation rate.

However, the initial amount of this kind of time deposit certificate is relatively large, often with one hundred thousand or one million US dollars as the minimum investment unit.

During that period, only a few institutional investors, or wealthy individuals, had enough cash to make such investments.

For most Americans, the only financial investments available at that time were bank savings accounts, stocks and bonds with pitifully low interest rates.

When times are tough, people naturally look for safe, liquid assets.

However, many financial assets are either too risky, lack liquidity, or have too low returns. In short, they cannot meet the financial needs of investors.

At the time, Ruth Bandt was the director of cash management and credit analyst at Teachers Pension Insurance Company, the world's largest pension fund.

After conducting a thorough investigation of the financial services industry, he came up with a genius idea.

He founded a mutual fund named "The Savings Fund Company" in 1970, and in 1971 it was authorized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell financial products to the public.

In October 1972, the Savings Fund Company purchased $300,000 in high-interest term savings.

At the same time, it is sold to small investors with an investment unit of US$1,000.

In this way, small investors enjoyed the return on investment that only large companies could obtain, and at the same time had higher cash liquidity. The first money market mutual fund in history was born.

After that, similar monetary funds emerged one after another, but they were nothing new in 2001.

Even Smith Capital itself, among the many financial products developed by David Mellon and company executives, also has a currency fund.

Fortunately, David has adapted to his boss.

David knew that Abel was a god in risky transactions.

But Abel's knowledge in the general financial field is really average, and may even be worse than that of finance majors in many universities.

Therefore, David did not feel bad about Abel's proposal.

"No no no no."

Abel shook his head, "The money fund I am referring to is different from traditional money funds."

After thinking for a while, Abel added: "To be precise, the name of the currency fund I am talking about should be "Virtual Currency Fund"."

"Virtual currency fund?" David Mellon was a little confused after hearing this.

A currency fund is a currency fund, can it also be virtual?

David didn't know that something called virtual currency would appear in the future.

Cut all the leeks around the world to the point of death.

"Retail investors, small family investors, and other micro-investors, through which channels do they usually invest in stocks and funds?" Abel asked.

"Go to a bank or a local securities company to open an account. Then go through their securities manager and implement their investment requirements." David Mellon said.

This is how investors across the United States or around the world have purchased stocks and funds for almost two hundred years.

"Then how do they contact their investment managers?" Abel asked patiently.

David Mellon thought for a moment:

"Usually it's a phone call. In the past, there were faxes and telegrams. Or you could go directly to a securities company to find an investment manager. But now there's the Internet, and some securities companies have tried to contact customers on the Internet."

"That's right." Abel put down his coffee and knocked on the table, "This is it, the Internet!"

"The virtual currency fund I am referring to is a new currency fund trading method that requires the use of the Internet."

Abel said:

"As far as I know, online trading of stocks began to appear on the New York Stock Exchange as early as 1995. But it did not become widely popularized until 1998, three years ago."

"Real Internet account opening has not yet appeared. To open an account, customers still need to go to a securities company or bank. Then the securities company or bank will provide a port to conduct transactions on the Internet."

"But strictly speaking, so far, this kind of transaction has actually changed from notifying the investment manager by phone to notifying the investment manager via the Internet."

"Then I think Smith Capital can move all financial products that allow small investments, such as monetary funds, to the Internet. In the future, even account opening and transactions can be done directly on the Internet."

"What Smith Capital has to do is just to maintain our network and add some branches in those big cities."

"In this way, we don't have to open a large number of business offices like Goldman Sachs. We can find a way to make our customers come from the Internet as much as possible."

Abel actually didn't know exactly what to do.

But before he was reborn, he bought things like Yu’e Bao and Yu Li Bao.

I also bought stock funds on some brokerage software.

Abel picked out the key points of Internet brokerages such as Yu'e Bao and told David Mellon the ones he could explain clearly.

Gradually, David Mellon understood what Abel meant.

"Oh, boss, you mean to sell small financial products such as monetary funds directly on the Internet?"

David Mellon said: "Open an account with them directly on the Internet? Trade directly on the Internet?"

Abel nodded, "That's probably what it means. But the specific operation, feasibility, etc., you need to weigh it yourself to see if you can do it."

To put it bluntly, what Abel said is the prototype of Internet securities companies.
To be continued...