SoftBank Samurai's 50 Billion Bet

After gifting the world WeWork and the late Wag.com in its optically challenged $100 billion Vision Fund, the sushi samurais of Softbank in Tokyo built up a $50 billion options derivatives position on NASDAQ tech darlings.

This forced Wall Street/Chicago option dealers to buy shares on NASDAQ to frantically hedge their short call positions and was the ballast for the NASDAQ's speculative froth in August. This high octane financial circus was destined to end in tears, as happened last week. Many little guys with leverage on NASDAQ have seriously confused the speculative bull market in FAANG/New Age tech stocks with their own magically mushroomed investment genius Abracadabra, hey presto!

Now Softbank unravelling of its options positions means a hard landing for speculative traders on NASDAQ. Loony tune valuations will meet hard reality and many innocent/leveraged lambs will be slaughtered in their quest for stock market nirvana.

The song remains the same but who is really listening? 

Matein Khalid is the Chief Investment Officer of Asas Capital Management. He has 25 years of experience in international capital markets as an advisor to family offices and fund managers. He has worked for investment banks/hedge funds in New York, Chicago, London, and Geneva. In addition, he has been the CIO of a technology fund in San Francisco, a royal investment office in Dubai and a public insurance company listed on the DFM.