At noon, Jonathan Friedman, Pat Kingsley, and others arrived in New York one after another, and everyone began to discuss how to deal with the current situation.
Although Simon's operations, closely tracking the S&P 500 index curve for over five months, were nothing short of miraculous, there were no violations whatsoever throughout.
James Raybould judged that it was precisely because Simon's trading records were too transparent, with no loopholes to exploit, that the major institutions resorted to wiretapping and leaked Westeros Company's trading information to the media, thereby forcing Simon to inadvertently reveal a weakness.
In this era, the annual budget of the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was only $100 million.
A colossal sum of $1.6 billion, enough to place a person among the top 100 on Forbes' global rich list, was certainly worth the major players using every means at their disposal.
For a young man like Simon, with virtually no background or connections, if it could be proven that Westeros Company's transactions involved irregularities, the authorities would undoubtedly issue a hefty fine without hesitation, potentially leaving Simon with nothing, not even his initial capital.
Simon and Janette rented the presidential suite at the Plaza Hotel after arriving in New York together at the end of October, making it difficult to determine when the wiretaps were installed.
However, since Westeros Company's operations were inherently legitimate, the wiretappers naturally couldn't obtain the information they desired.
At 4 PM, to avoid public opinion spiralling out of control due to continuous media evasion, Pat Kingsley, acting as Simon's spokesperson, held a brief press conference.
She officially confirmed Westeros Company's series of operations in the stock index futures market, while simultaneously denying media rumours that Simon was under investigation for alleged insider trading.
The highly anticipated Hollywood genius director suddenly became a billionaire; such explosive news meant that a simple press conference could not possibly satisfy the media's appetite.
Subsequently, the number of reporters gathered outside Simon's Upper East Side apartment not only did not decrease but grew, even affecting traffic on Fifth Avenue at one point.
Countless interview invitations were also delivered to Simon through various channels.
At the same time, the North American stock market today responded most directly to the revelations by The New York Times and other media outlets.
In just one day, a brand new phrase quickly spread among countless stock investors: the Westeros Portfolio.
The stock market crash had passed, and no matter how amazed and envious people were of Simon Westeros's previous operations, it was impossible to go back several months to imitate them.
However, this young man's stock market trades were very easy to follow.
Although it was unclear why Simon Westeros bought a large number of tech stocks, for a young man who had just made over a billion dollars in the stock index futures market, the value of his buying operations was definitely 100 times higher than any stockbroker's recommendation.
The Wall Street Journal listed in detail a total of 26 tech stocks purchased by Westeros Company.
According to the exposed data, Simon Westeros's purchase scale was also very interesting.
Among the 26 stocks, ranging from Motorola, which still had a market value exceeding $5 billion after the stock market crash, to a high-performance graphics workstation company called Silicon Graphics (SG), which had just gone public last year with a market value of less than $200 million, there were also a series of star tech stocks such as Apple, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun.
After a series of large-scale purchases by Westeros Company, their shareholding ratios in these companies were all maintained at a very subtle level of around 4.9%.
According to Federal Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, investors holding 5% or more of a company's stock are required to report it, and subsequent buying and selling operations will be strictly regulated.
Wall Street analysts therefore concluded that Simon Westeros did not intend to hold these stocks for the long term.
Since it was a short-term operation, there was no need for any hesitation in following suit.
Thus, in just one day, the market trading volume of the 26 stocks held by Westeros Company surged several times compared to before.
After the market closed in the afternoon, the average increase of these stocks exceeded 20%, with some even returning to their pre-crash highs.
Simon had purchased these stocks at the lowest point during the week of the stock market crash, essentially bottom-fishing.
Due to Westeros Company's large-scale purchases stimulating the tech stock market, the value of these stocks had already rebounded by about 15% in the preceding weeks.
Now.
After today's surge, the book value of the tech stocks held by Westeros Company has approached $1.5 billion, meaning Simon has once again earned $400 million in less than a month.
All of Westeros Company's cash and stocks, the total asset value, has exceeded $2 billion.
Simon's side.
After repeatedly confirming Simon's trading operations, the questioning process, and that there were no inappropriate actions that could trigger an investigation during the wiretapping period, everyone began to busy themselves with managing the current media situation and discussing potential upcoming investigations.
Indeed, just as James Raybould had predicted.
Early the next morning, the spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York publicly announced at a press conference that the FBI, the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York were investigating the illegal operations of Lehman Brothers that led to massive losses for Quantum Fund.
When answering reporters' questions, the spokesperson implicitly confirmed that the prosecutor's office suspected Westeros Company might be involved.
Subsequently, a local New York TV station exposed more explicit potential accusations: an unnamed government official revealed that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York suspected Westeros Company of conspiring with Lehman Brothers to manipulate the market, causing a sharp drop in the S&P 500 index through insider trading on October 22nd, resulting in huge losses for investors.
Simon never expected to be saddled with such a heavy accusation.
If the charges were proven true, Simon would not only face massive fines, but investors who suffered losses on the morning of October 22nd due to the sharp drop in the S&P 500 index would also have the right to file claims against him.
On October 22nd, the S&P 500 index plummeted from 256 points at the previous day's close to 197 points.
Quantum Fund's 9,000 long contracts alone theoretically incurred additional losses exceeding $260 million.
The total losses of investors in the entire Chicago futures market obviously far exceeded those of Quantum Fund.
At that point, facing compensation claims from countless investors, Simon could simply declare bankruptcy, and the enormous debt after losing the lawsuits would be enough to ensure he could never recover in his lifetime.
Simon indeed remembered information about the market crash on October 22nd due to Lehman Brothers' selling, which is why he arranged to sell the last batch of over 5,000 short contracts on that day.
However, this incident clearly had nothing to do with Simon; it was entirely an internal error at Lehman Brothers.
Pat Kingsley immediately denied the accusations linking Simon to the incident, but the related narratives inevitably spread.
After Simon was questioned by the Federal Futures Trading Commission on Monday, the following Friday, the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission also questioned Simon.
This time, the Raybould couple accompanied Simon to meet with SEC staff, again answering a series of questions about Westeros Company's stock transactions.
Inside the apartment on 68th Street in the Upper East Side.
The date was November 16th, Monday.
Last night, New York finally saw its first snow of the winter.
'When Harry Met Sally' was nearing completion, and the crew had been hoping for snow in New York to film certain scenes, so this snowfall came at the perfect time.
Waking up in the morning and seeing Central Park covered in white outside the window, Simon inexplicably thought of A Dream of Red Mansions.
After eight o'clock, Jonathan and the others arrived from their respective residences.
Although the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and other agencies had not yet officially made their move, the past week had been anything but easy for everyone.
To prevent Simon from being directly convicted by the overwhelming media before even facing formal charges, everyone had been busy with media relations work, constantly clarifying, refuting, and even sending lawyer's letters to some newspapers, while also contacting other media outlets to publish various news releases favourable to their side, in order to protect Simon's personal reputation.
Simon, deep down, didn't care about reputation.
But like many things in life, you might not care, but you can't neglect to maintain it.
If he were to be forcibly branded a 'financial criminal' by the media, similar to Michael Jackson being labelled a paedophile, Simon would likely be burdened with a negative buff in everything he did from then on.
Everyone settled into the living room, which had a wide conference table, and were gathered around a pile of newspapers, magazines, faxes, and even videotapes, analysing yesterday's public opinion trends, when Jennifer Raybould, who was responsible for answering calls, suddenly handed the receiver to Simon, saying it was Noah Scott calling.
After the incident broke out last week, Simon did not proactively contact Lehman Brothers, on James Raybould's advice, and they, too, had not communicated with Simon.
Hearing Noah Scott call now, everyone's faces showed a hint of unusual expression.
Noah Scott claimed on the phone that he was nearby and hoped to visit, and Simon agreed.
A few minutes later.
Noah Scott arrived, exchanged a few simple greetings with everyone, then, with a serious expression, quietly expressed a desire to speak with Simon alone.
Under everyone's gaze, Simon led Noah Scott to an adjacent, still empty, sitting room.
Standing by the window in the sitting room, Noah Scott raised a hand to wipe away the condensation on the glass, looking out at the falling snow and Central Park in the distance, and said, "A very nice house".
Simon looked at the blurred window in front of him, but didn't reach out to wipe it, nodding: "Yes, it's a pity it hasn't been decorated yet".
Noah Scott paused, unable to find another suitable topic for small talk, and then directly said, "Simon, I have to be honest with you, the current situation is very bad".
Simon turned his head, simply waiting for Noah Scott to continue.