Chapter 1176 Extreme Joy Begets Sadness
The next day, the comments in the media that the Federal Department of Justice should impose restrictions on the Yahoo browser really became more and more turbulent.
Although the whole incident has been basically determined to be provoked by Microsoft behind the scenes, other Internet companies that have been suppressed by the Firefly system obviously also regard this incident as an opportunity. Almost all Internet companies feel that if they can force Yahoo to give up its monopoly in Internet browser software, they will definitely be able to gain more market share.
Now, companies such as at-home are taking the initiative, and other Internet companies are naturally willing to follow suit and contribute to the flames.
Although the Ministry of Justice's hearing on Yahoo's browser was scheduled for 2:00 pm Eastern Time, Yahoo's stock price plummeted 3.3% just after 9:30 am due to the media's comments.
As Eric expected, AOL-Time Warner, at-home and even Microsoft and other new technology companies that have business competition with Yahoo have seen their share prices rise to varying degrees.
The entire Nasdaq market also continued to rebound in the previous two weeks in the next hour or so.
However, at eleven o'clock in the morning, following an announcement on the official website of Firefly Investment, many executives of Internet companies who were secretly excited turned from extreme joy to sorrow.
The announcement stated that in order to raise funds for the company's next development, Firefly Investment will appropriately reduce its holdings of Yahoo, Cisco, Qualcomm and other companies' stocks in the next week.
Although this announcement is short and even somewhat perfunctory, after counting hundreds of thousands to millions of stock reduction plans of various companies announced by Firefly Investment, countless people were surprised to find that Firefly Investment made an understatement of a shareholding reduction plan. , the total value of the stocks involved reached 3 billion US dollars.
If it was the peak period of the Nasdaq market a few months ago, 3 billion US dollars of funds were cashed out within a week, as long as the operation was done properly, it would not have much impact on the Nasdaq index. In the process of reducing holdings in the last few weeks of the Clover Fund, more than US$3 billion was cashed out from the Nasdaq market every week.
However, everyone knows that the current situation is completely different from a few months ago.
The Nasdaq stock market has just experienced a shocking crash, and countless people have suffered heavy losses. In the past two weeks, although the Nasdaq index has begun to rebound under the manipulation of various parties, investors who have just experienced a stock market crash are basically a group of frightened birds.
And, while the broad market's overall trend is bouncing back, stocks on Nasdaq are far less active than they were a few months ago.
At this time, the Firefly system, which plays a pivotal role in the entire new technology industry, changed its attitude of supporting the Nasdaq market for several months, and suddenly announced a plan to reduce its holdings with great fanfare, and it was 3 billion US dollars at a time.
Even though many people understood that this matter had something to do with Yahoo's upcoming DOJ hearings, a strong sense of panic quickly brewed in the Nasdaq market.
After reducing holdings by US$3 billion in one week, what about next week?
Will Firefly Investment continue to reduce its holdings?
You must know that despite the collapse of the Nasdaq index, the value of the technology stock market directly controlled by Firefly Investment Company still exceeds 200 billion U.S. dollars. The US$3 billion reduction plan may already be equivalent to the market value of many new technology companies, but it will basically not affect the proportion of Firefly Investment Holdings in various technology companies.
Then, after Firefly Investment reduced its holdings in the first week, it is entirely possible to continue to cash out.
Although the Nasdaq stock market has begun to rebound but is still fragile inside, how many times can Firefly Investment experience a reduction of US$3 billion in holdings?
Various thoughts flashed through the minds of countless investors, and along with the announcement of Firefly Investment, a number of technology company stock sales directly appeared in the market. Subsequently, many investors began to follow suit and sell almost subconsciously.
As a result, the two-week upward trend of the Nasdaq index came to an abrupt end.
Starting at 11 a.m. when Firefly Investment released an announcement and sold stocks unceremoniously, in the next hour, the Nasdaq index took a sharp turn with the emergence of a large number of panic-selling stocks, falling from a maximum of 3677 points to 3612 points.
The stock prices of technology companies in the Firefly system, such as Yahoo, Cisco, Qualcomm, and Amazon, have plummeted one after another. Yahoo’s share price has fallen by as much as 13.3% in two and a half hours since the opening of the market.
However, this is clearly just the beginning.
In the afternoon, some investors who were still on the sidelines felt that the situation was not good, and they also joined the ranks of selling. This inevitably led to further spread of the selling wave, and the stock prices of new technology companies outside the Firefly system also began to plummet.
Looking at the decline curve of the Nasdaq index that seemed to be pulled down by a giant hand, the entire new technology industry couldn't sit still and made various responses.
Subsequently, Internet media platforms including aol and msn portals successively released press releases, accusing the Firefly system of suddenly reducing its holdings.
The aol portal unceremoniously pointed out in the press release that Firefly Investment has accumulated cash of at least US$9 billion through sales of AOL shares last year and the transfer of shares in Fireflyer this year. If the profits handed over by Nokia, Cisco and other companies under Firefly Investment are included, the current cash reserve of Firefly Investment has even reached the level of tens of billions of dollars.
In addition, AOL directly revealed that Firefly Group's Clover Fund also hoarded a large amount of cash, and the amount was no less than that of Firefly Investment Company.
The entire Firefly system has such a strong cash reserve, and the only major expenditure of the Firefly system over the past year is the acquisition of Sony Pictures for less than US$3 billion. It is necessary to sell the technology stocks in hand.
The reason why Firefly Investment did this was to use the entire Nasdaq market as a threat to force the Federal Department of Justice to give up its intervention and investigation of Yahoo's browser monopoly market share.
Although everyone understands that the statement in the AOL press release is completely true. However, AOL's 'blunt' attitude still made many people sigh secretly that this is a young company after all. At least, the editor-in-chief of the aol portal who allowed this article to be published must not be so well versed in world affairs.
There are many things that everyone is doing, but they absolutely cannot be said.
Sure enough, less than 10 minutes after the article on the aol portal website was published, the lawyer's letter from Firefly Investment was sent directly to Steve Case.
At the same time, Firefly Investment also responded unceremoniously on the Yahoo portal, saying that every step of Firefly Investment’s shareholding reduction plan strictly abides by relevant federal regulations. The company not only reported the shareholding reduction to the Federal Trade Commission in advance, but also announced The majority of shareholders have been notified in the form, which is enough to show the responsible attitude of Firefly Investment to the company's investors.
Therefore, aol portal's speculation on the purpose of firefly's investment reduction is a malicious smear. Firefly investment company requires aol portal to withdraw the relevant draft immediately, and at the same time, the editor who wrote this article and aol portal will be punished for reputation infringement The website filed a lawsuit.
When many people were secretly expecting that America Online would forcefully confront the Firefly system, within half an hour, the article on the aol portal disappeared.
Although the aol portal did not make any apology, the active withdrawal of AOL has made many other smaller news portals restrained.
Some people even noticed again that despite several large-scale reductions, after the merger in the first half of the year, Firefly Investment is still the major shareholder of AOL-Time Warner Group, with a shareholding ratio of more than 4.1%.
Moreover, as many investment banking institutions have continuously reduced their holdings and exited this year, Firefly Investment, which has always retained its stocks, has gradually risen in the ranks of major shareholders of AOL-Time Warner.
Unknowingly, Firefly Investment's 4.1% stake in AOL-Time Warner Group has become second only to Ted Turner's 6.5%, becoming the second largest shareholder of AOL-Time Warner.
Although due to a series of reasons at the beginning, Firefly Investment did not occupy a seat on the AOL-Time Warner board of directors, and even authorized the voting rights of the stocks in its hands to the management of AOL in the merger case in the first half of the year.
However, after this small episode, the outside world once again realized that even if it is only an external shareholder who is completely unable to intervene in the management of AOL-Time Warner Group, even if the shareholding of Firefly Investment does not even reach the proportion reported to the Federal Trade Commission. But in any case, Firefly Investment is the second largest shareholder of AOL-Time Warner after all, and it is impossible for any large company to ignore the existence of such a major shareholder.
Firefly System usually does not exert its own influence on AOL-Time Warner at all, and even let AOL-Time Warner compete with Firefly System Technology Company. However, as long as the Firefly system exerts its strength, AOL-Time Warner still has to honestly withdraw news that is unfavorable to the Firefly system within half an hour.
When the Nasdaq market was in mourning with Firefly Investment's shareholding reduction plan, the hearing of the Ministry of Justice in the afternoon was held as scheduled.
According to a pre-agreed strategy, Yahoo CEO Ian Grenier responded loudly to the Department of Justice's investigation of Yahoo's browser in front of Attorney General Janet Reynolds, who personally presided over the hearing, and dozens of reporters from various parties. All kinds of doubts.
In response to the Ministry of Justice's question that the excessive market share of Yahoo's browser restricts the development of Internet companies in the same industry, Ian Grenier directly countered.
Besides Yahoo browser, whether it is portal business, e-mail business or search engine business, Yahoo belongs to the pioneer of the industry.
Many Internet companies of the same type are completely imitating Yahoo's various business models, and some of the imitators directly copied many of Yahoo's technology patents, which largely violated Yahoo's core interests.
However, in the face of these imitators, Yahoo not only did not fight back, but instead took the initiative to authorize a large number of technical patents with a very open attitude, which promoted the development of the entire industry. This is enough to show that Yahoo is a company full of social responsibility. .
During the two-hour hearing, Ian Grenier almost completely controlled the rhythm of the entire hearing through careful preparation and skillful on-the-spot performance.
Although Janet Reynolds did not directly announce the decision of the Ministry of Justice in the end, even the inexperienced guests at the hearing, considering the current situation in all aspects, have a premonition that the Ministry of Justice will not be able to take any action against the Yahoo browser this time. substantive action.
After all, as Ian Grenier said at the hearing, unlike Microsoft’s expensive Windows operating system, Yahoo’s browser is completely free, and this software will not increase users’ expenses. Not only that, A unified interface standard also helps users surf the Internet more smoothly.
At the same time, Yahoo invests tens of millions of dollars in this free browser every year, and the company also has enough rights to enjoy the platform benefits brought by this product. Yahoo has maintained a sufficiently open attitude, and has no obligation to further accommodate those companies that follow suit and imitate Yahoo's business model.
After the hearing, Yahoo immediately published the full text of the hearing and released the complete video resources.
Immediately afterwards, the media platform of the entire Firefly system also made efforts at the same time, and began to discuss and control the field. From the afternoon of that day, Yoron's wind direction gradually began to favor the firefly system.
After all, Eric still didn't rush to Washington to join in the fun. However, that afternoon, he received a call from Janet Reynolds, a moderate-style female minister of the Federal Ministry of Justice, who said that the Ministry of Justice will officially announce the results of the hearing tomorrow, and at the same time hoped that Firefly Investment could cancel the shareholding reduction plan to avoid Further stimulate the trend of the Nasdaq market.
Along with this almost one-sided hearing, the Nasdaq index also showed a one-sided attitude throughout the trading day on Monday.
In just one day, the Nasdaq index fell 177 points. Some technology companies even fell back to their lowest point two weeks ago within six and a half hours.
However, although the Ministry of Justice has made a statement on the Yahoo browser, Eric does not intend to give up this reduction.
After all, once the holding reduction is temporarily given up, it is simply tantamount to a blunt admission that Firefly Investment's holding reduction behavior is putting pressure on the federal government. This is not only a slap in the face of Firefly Investment itself, but also a slap in the face of the Ministry of Justice.
Therefore, the next day, although the Ministry of Justice held a press conference on time at nine o'clock in the morning, it announced that as long as the Yahoo browser maintains a consistent operating strategy, the Ministry of Justice will not intervene too much in this software.
However, after the market opened in the morning, the firefly system's holding reduction action continued, and the entire Nasdaq market also continued to decline.
A siege that was originally intended to be launched against Yahoo almost ended hastily before it even started. Now, many people have experienced a strong sense of frustration that nothing can be achieved by stealing chickens.
The Nasdaq lost another 97 points throughout Tuesday's trading day.
Although compared with yesterday's decline, today's decline has begun to slow down, but the rebound trend of the entire Nasdaq market has clearly come to an end.
Wall Street, which was expecting the Nasdaq to return to the high of 4,000 points, looked at the Nasdaq index that had fallen back to 3,403 points, and felt a bit like crying without tears.
After all, having just experienced the crash, Wall Street’s behavior of reducing holdings and leaving the market during this rebound appears to be extremely cautious. Just two weeks is far from enough for Wall Street’s major investment bank funds to fully cash out their technology stocks.
Now, the situation has turned again, and it will only be more difficult to cash out the stocks in hand.
Moreover, what's more serious is that the last rebound of the Nasdaq index was largely the result of a series of positive news stimulated by the Firefly system.
But now, the Firefly system, which has just been put together by competitors, will obviously not make any moves to support the Nasdaq market.
So, besides the firefly system, who else can take on this role?
The answer is, no.
Another Microsoft antitrust case that could be exploited has now been settled.
Moreover, even Microsoft does not have the solid background of the Firefly system that can reverse the trend of the entire Nasdaq market.
If it is other capital forces, Wall Street can also exert influence on it. But for the Firefly system, which has become a system of its own, the entire Wall Street has been unable to do what it wants.