(A bank staff is counting yuan Photo/Chinanews.com)

According to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, the central parity rate of the Chinese currency, the yuan, strengthened 237 basis points to 6.5032 against the U.S. dollar on Sep. 8, marking the fact that the currency has strengthened for the tenth consecutive working day to a nearly 16-month high against the U.S. dollar.

The strengthening of the yuan has brought many benefits for Chinese people. They can buy foreign commodities at cheaper prices and spend less on overseas studies.

However, it’s bad news for investors who short sell the Chinese currency. Mark Hart, founder of Corriente Advisors, serves as a good example. According to Bloomberg, the hedge fund manager spent seven years and about 1.6 billion yuan ($240 million) waiting on a crash in Chinese currency. Hart had successfully predicted both the U.S. subprime mortgage bust and the European debt crisis years ago.

Due to the time difference, Hart had mostly given up on sleep at night and closely followed the market news and exchange rates. Having lost clients and nearly his sanity, he kept betting that the Chinese currency would collapse. Now, he has lost his conviction: the yuan, which he called for a more than 50 percent of devaluation last year, has rallied.

Bloomberg reported that whether or not China got help from other G20 nations, the government has clearly succeeded in stabilizing the exchange rate. The yuan ended a three-year slide in late December and has rallied almost 7 percent in 2017, including a 0.5 percent increase on Sept. 7. “It’s now trading at the strongest level in more than a year versus the greenback.”

According to Bloomberg, Hart lost between $240 million and $250 million, equivalent to about 1.61 billion yuan. The report pointed out that it was a rare miscalculation for Hart. “I always thought we had a good risk-reward trade on, but we made a number of mistakes, including being way too early,” he said, “And now the world has changed.”