SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) --By 2.08pm Shanghai time on March 8, it was clear that Xiang Guangda's giant bet on a fall in nickel prices was going spectacularly wrong.

Futures had just skyrocketed above US$100,000 a ton and his trade was more than US$10 billion underwater. It was threatening not only to bankrupt Mr Xiang's company, but to trigger a Lehman Brothers-like shock through the entire metals industry and possibly topple the London Metal Exchange (LME) itself.

But Mr Xiang was calm. Within hours, more than 50 bankers had arrived at his office wanting to hear how he planned to respond to the crisis. He told them simply: "I'm confident that we will overcome this."

And he did.