Chapter 12

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Like all securities firms, Gwangwoon Securities was extremely sensitive about risk management.

Securities firms only measure return rates by long-term goals and never expect high returns in the short term.

Because trying to do that in the stock market is no different from gambling, and being greedy can result in tremendous losses.

That’s why they always take a mathematical approach and only invest in places where they can extract money stably with the least risk.

Therefore, when prop traders lose their minds and lose money like now, the risk managers watching them immediately suspend trading.

“Everyone’s in chaos again today.”

Consecutive bearish markets.

Some guys make money through short selling, but that’s also ultimately a game of reading the mood.

Just because it’s a bearish market doesn’t mean it goes straight down, it draws lower bounds while repeatedly going up and down.

Because of that, there were traders who misjudged and lost money.

After suspending several prop traders’ trading, the phone rang soon after.

[Section Chief Kim. Did you just block my trading?]

“Yeah. Your minus is 4% right now, Manager Yoo. By regulations, I have to block it.”

[What? I’ve been doing day trading for years. You give veterans leeway up to 5%!]

“I’m watching all the charts too. Just stop there today. Cool your head.”

[Hey! You son of a.]

Section Chief Kim Sang-geon hung up as if he didn’t need to hear more.

Even after that, calls poured in from traders whose trading was suspended.

[Section Chief. Can’t you give me a bit more? Please just 1%. I can really recover it!]

[Section Chief Kim. Save me. What am I supposed to eat this month if I can’t earn today too!]

It feels like watching gamblers who’ve run out of chips.

He understands their situations too.

Prop traders are in a position similar to freelancers.

They sign individual contracts with the company and take a certain portion of profits.

Annual salaries of 10 billion sometimes occur exactly because of this.

But if there’s no profit? Or if they end up in the negative?

Then it was a structure where a certain portion of the loss is deducted from the next incentive.

Securities firms are cold.

And even more ruthless about risk management.

Even if this person loses 3% right now, if given more time, they might make profits.

But statistically, usually they lose more.

Because their judgment is already clouded and they make wrong trades.

That’s why when the decline rate set for each prop trader is exceeded, trading is immediately suspended.

“I can’t help it either. I have to do my job.”

If the risk manager fails to properly monitor and records even more negatives, that damages Section Chief Kim Sang-geon too.

As a performance evaluation tsunami.

“Hm?”

While diligently doing his job today as always, Section Chief Kim’s eyes widened at the alerts ringing like crazy on one part of the screen.

“What’s this?”

There was a crazy bastard pouring all 5 billion into just one stock without risk management.

And isn’t he repeating buying and selling in units of seconds?

“There’s one guy who’s lost his mind.”

Day trading?

That’s fine.

Prop traders are people who day trade every few seconds.

But there’s no crazy bastard who takes 100% of their capital and all-ins on one stock, not diversified investment, and day trades.

“But this person.”

Before that bastard blows all 5 billion, Section Chief Kim Sang-geon was about to suspend trading.

But he hesitated at that crazy trader’s name.

“Jeong Jin-ho. Isn’t that the person from before?”

The rookie senior trader who invested in exactly 3 stocks without risk management and was the only one who made high returns.

They said he got returns from luck back then, but when he went to warn him not to do it again, Team Leader Park had stopped him.

Team Leader Park said if he’s curious why, ask his own team leader.

He forgot to ask his team leader because he went to do other work.

“..”

About to press the stop button, Section Chief Kim felt something off and approached where the team leader was.

“Um, Team Leader.”

“Mm? What?”

“Right now someone’s day trading one stock with 100% capital.”

“Really? Looks like they jumped into a listing stock, isn’t it fine if they just manage risk well?”

“Yes. But they’re not doing any risk management and repeatedly putting in and taking out all 5 billion.”

Then the risk management team leader, Sung Il-gu, banged the desk and shouted.

“Isn’t that a crazy bastard? What are you doing not suspending it right away!?”

“Yes. I was going to, but I heard that person is a new hire who just came in. Do you happen to know them, Team Leader?”

“What? A new hire?”

Isn’t there always one or two new hires coming into securities firms periodically?

But if the one causing this major accident now is a new hire and a senior trader.

Team Leader Sung’s severely distorted face turned cold.

“Is that trader’s name by any chance Jeong Jin-ho?”

“Yes. That’s right. Last time too, he bought 3 stocks without any risk management, so I went to give a warning, but Team Leader Park stopped me saying I didn’t need to. He said if I’m really curious, ask my team leader directly.”

“..”

Section Chief Kim carefully observed the team leader’s complexion.

It’s a face that’s somehow troubled.

“Just leave it.”

“What? Even though he’s playing around with 5 billion like that?”

“Yeah. That’ll be better for both you and me.”

What the hell does this mean?

Someone who would normally make a fuss to even unplug all the monitors immediately.

“That trader is someone inserted from above.”

“Ah. You don’t mean.”

“It’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

Royal family!

Now he understood why Team Leader Park said that.

“It seems Team Leader Park doesn’t know what to do either and is just letting it be, but if we mistakenly touch something that team leader won’t touch? We’re the only ones who get screwed. Understand what I mean?”

“But if he loses all that money like that, won’t they blame our risk team?”

“We have to hope not. What can we do? Are you really going to suspend trading? Can you handle the aftermath?”

“No.”

“Just pretend you didn’t see that. Our Section Chief Kim worked hard, we can’t let your career get ruined.”

At the team leader’s words, Section Chief Kim quietly returned to his seat.

His heart was pounding for no reason.

If he had pressed trading suspension without even asking the team leader.

“Ugh. Just thinking about it is terrifying.”

The only worry was how much of this 5 billion this heaven-sent new hire would lose today. It would also be quite troublesome if he loses all that money and then blames it all on the risk management team for not suspending trading in advance. With worried feelings, even trying not to care about that side, his eyes kept going to Jeong Jin-ho’s trading window.

“Am I seeing this wrong?”

But something unbelievable was happening.

“Wh-why is the return rate like this?”

If he keeps making such reckless investments, naturally the return rate should be negative.

But isn’t Jeong Jin-ho’s capital actually going in the opposite direction?

Every time he repeated buying and selling.

Jeong Jin-ho’s profit rate kept only going up.

————————————————————————————————————————

“Ah.”

1 PM.

There were still a few hours left until the market closed, but I called GG there.

Meaning I let go because I couldn’t do anymore.

“Uhhh.”

I let out a small groan.

Both eyes were so strained I couldn’t open them, and like an overloaded engine, my head was spinning with intense pain and dizziness.

“This also has limits after all.”

Today was the first day like this.

Should I say I only pressed the mouse as if my fingers would break while using the ability consecutively like this?

I learned today that this ability can also get overloaded.

“The stock price still seems to be moving actively.”

Perhaps I worked this guy too hard, because after burning it out white, no more feeling came.

Plus, just looking at the screen made my head spin round and round, so I closed my eyes.

‘But what was my return rate?’

Since I just madly clicked buy and sell buttons as if possessed, I didn’t check at all how much I earned or how much I lost.

I just kept clicking.

‘Let me check later.’

Right now I felt like I couldn’t even look at my phone screen, so I rested with my eyes closed while leaning on the chair.

————————————————————————————————————————

When companies grow to a certain scale, they enter stabilization.

Meaning they won’t collapse over just anything.

But securities firms were different.

Even now, overseas securities firms several times bigger than Gwangwoon Securities collapse in one shot from mismanaging risk, doesn’t that keep happening?

Our country has various financial regulations to cushion that shock.

But that doesn’t mean we can be reassured.

Korean securities firms have also made mistakes in risk management and suffered enormous losses many times.

Goryeo Securities, Daehan Securities, KIKO incident, etc.

Some securities disappeared into history, but places still maintaining until now had public funds fortunately injected to keep them breathing.

However, since securities firms need investor trust, places that lost that reputation can never rise again.

“Why are there so many damn documents?”

He could just have a secretary or employee summarize things roughly.

But what if they leave out important content and the president himself makes a mistake when making judgments?

Because such fatal mistakes must never happen, President Hwang Dae-woon never skipped reading even the longest documents.

“The FOMC meeting is coming soon, so we need to prepare well too.”

The US monetary policy decision meeting is held 8 times a year.

Every time issues decided there come out, they greatly affect the global financial market.

“Somehow it seems busier after becoming president.”

His shoulders are starting to lock up, seems like he needs to rest.

“Oh right. What happened to our Jin-ho?”

He became a prop trader for the first time yesterday, so that guy must have been frantic too.

Plus, isn’t it continuously a bearish market right now?

He must have lost money.

“Usually rookie seniors only get 1 billion in capital, so did he lose about 5% of that?”

Because there are risk managers, they block it before losing more than that.

Then the amount Jin-ho lost over two days would be about 50 million.

Well, that amount isn’t particularly precious.

Just think of it as a life lesson.

That’s how much he cherished that guy.

So let’s see how much he lost.

“Wh-what?”

Curious, President Hwang checked Jeong Jin-ho’s capital.

But the amount exceeded expectations.

“Why is it 6 billion?!”

6 billion, a whopping 6 times the 1 billion.

It seems these guys considered that Jeong Jin-ho is a parachute and increased the capital, and even the risk manager didn’t touch him.

“Oh boy.”

Jin-ho probably just traded as told without knowing anything.

Then how much loss occurred?

If I knew this would happen, I should have called all the people in charge and talked to them. Wait?

“Hold on.”

But looking closely at the trading window, something was strange.

Initial capital was 1 billion.

After that, return rate was a whopping 10%.

Because of that, with team leader authority, the capital ratio was increased, adding 4 billion.

So today’s return rate.

“2-20%!?”

President Hwang Dae-woon also had days as a prop trader.

Back then was when trading was done by phone, but then or now, there were almost no day traders making 20% in one day.

No. President Hwang was actually seeing it for the first time.

Plus, Korea is a place where the upper limit is currently capped at 15%.

Even in the US where there’s no upper limit restriction, there are no prop traders earning 20% from day trading.

There and here, thorough risk management means not making risky investments, but above all, 20% profit in one day was almost in the realm of gods.

But Jeong Jin-ho.

This crazy guy kept trading only one stock and created the absurd number of 20%.

And that by investing all his capital of 5 billion.

“This is a system error.”

Otherwise, how could such numbers be possible?

“What? There’s really no problem? Really?”

But even calling the IT team and checking several times, nothing changed.

That youngest guild member wrote history that will remain long at Gwangwoon Securities today.

“..”

He was just a guy who made guild members laugh, was a mood maker, was earnest and kind, and when he said he was going out for employment, he showed kindness.

Even when he became a senior trader, if he lost some money, he planned to warmly console him and show the dignity of a guild master.

But he became senior and in just two days set the highest record of 20% daily return rate.

Just lucky?

No. This isn’t something that happens from just being lucky.

You can tell just by looking at the trading volume.

It was possible only by purely repeating buying and selling and accumulating money little by little to reach this return rate. Plus, the guy suddenly stopped buying from 1 PM, and from that time the stock completely went to hell.

‘He knew.’

When it would rise, and when it would fall.

But is this possible?

Really?

“..”

President Hwang, who was staring at the screen in a daze, suddenly came to his senses.

“This isn’t the time.”

He quickly picked up the phone first. “Secretary Jang. Our Jin-ho. No. Tell all the people in charge related to Senior Trader Jeong Jin-ho to come up to the president’s office.”