Chapter 123

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“What is this? Personnel reassignment?”

“Ah, yes. Gwangwoon Securities reassigned personnel from the asset management division and employees from KW Exchange.”

“Why on earth? Is the securities firm short on staff? Don’t we need to hire more new employees? What if President Jeong’s work gets disrupted?”

Hwang Dae-woon’s heart sank at the report that came up.

Gwangwoon Securities is the core of the Gwangwoon Group.

Reassigning employees from other subsidiaries means they’re that short-handed.

It can’t be acceptable for Gwangwoon Securities of all places to be short on staff!

“Vice President, what happened?”

“I was about to report on this but…”

Vice President Kang was uncharacteristically dragging out his words today.

“Actually, the personnel reassignment is temporary. Once this project President Jeong is currently working on is successfully completed, we plan to return the employees.”

“Project? Is there something Gwangwoon Securities is working on separately? Other than entering the EU market?”

“Yes. It’s exactly that.”

“Hm?”

Hwang Dae-woon tilted his head.

The executives were the same way, but some of them seemed to have realized something.

“Wait, Vice President. Don’t tell me it’s what I’m thinking… it’s not, right?”

At those words, the Vice President slowly nodded.

“What you’re thinking. You’re probably right.”

“Whaat!?”

Chairman Hwang felt like only he was left out.

“What is it?”

“The reason President Jeong reassigned personnel this time is none other than for trading.”

“Hm? Trading? We already have more than enough people for that at the securities firm, don’t we?”

“Yes. Some personnel were reassigned from there too. But more were needed.”

“Is there a reason to need that many? Unless you’re putting together teams to day-trade like before…”

Hwang Dae-woon also made an expression as if he realized something while mumbling.

“W-wait, is it that?!”

Vice President Kang nodded with his eyes closed.

Hwang Dae-woon found his mouth going dry.

“H-how much? What’s the scale this time?”

“The EU’s request was to first sweep up all corporate bonds and related products to lower European market CDS. The condition was that Gwangwoon Securities could do as it pleased afterward. So about 200 trillion went into buying corporate bonds, and they’re planning to move the remaining 500 trillion.”

“S-so you’re saying they’re day-trading with 500 trillion?!”

“Yes. That’s why they’re reassigning trading staff.”

“!?”

He had doubts, but—

It was really for that reason!

“…”

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

Everyone had faces like they didn’t know how to react.

“Was this coordinated with the EU?”

“They didn’t separately inform them. They already invested over 200 trillion to stabilize CDS as requested. They said we could do as we pleased with the rest.”

“I don’t think ‘do as you please’ means it’s okay to day-trade with 500 trillion…”

“That’s… true. The EU probably can’t even imagine what Gwangwoon Securities is preparing right now.”

Of course, who could possibly imagine it?

They’re not just going long with 500 trillion—they’re day-trading with it.

“Just in case, but did the EU bear some kind of grudge against our Jin-ho? Did they do something to get on his bad side?”

“Not quite a grudge, but initially the EU came to us asking for help, then immediately withdrew the proposal when the situation improved a bit. But then the Beirut explosion reversed the situation again.”

“Then as the rumors say, did President Jeong really cause Beirut to…!”

At someone’s words, Hwang Dae-woon’s face scrunched up greatly.

“Who said that just now? Who’s spouting such nonsense!”

“S-sorry.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to even let such unverified bullshit out of your mouths?”

“…”

After giving a firm warning, Hwang Dae-woon turned his gaze back to Vice President Kang Ji-hwan.

“Vice President, but is there even a market that can handle 500 trillion in day-trading? Even the US probably can’t?”

“Yes, of course there’s no market that can accommodate 500 trillion in day-trading. However, if we split that money and spread it across the entire European market? That’s not impossible.”

“So… split the money across the major EU markets and day-trade with it?”

“Yes. Spread 500 trillion everywhere and repeat the process of collecting it again.”

But even so, the fact remains that 500 trillion is being deployed into the EU market for day-trading.

In other words, using this method incorrectly could cause irreversible negative effects.

“What if the EU market goes wrong? If negative effects become stronger than positive and the market itself collapses?”

“Then…”

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan reluctantly continued.

“We’ll have to hope our government handles it well.”

“…!”

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

Gwangwoon Securities had been completely hectic for the past few days preparing for today’s large-scale operation.

After completely clearing one floor, they laid out computers wall to wall. The maintenance team employees reassigned from KW Exchange, the asset management company, and other subsidiaries had to work hard.

“Everyone hurry up a little more. It’s tight to meet the schedule President Jeong instructed.”

But they had to move even faster from here.

The order from above was to absolutely meet the deadline.

And it wasn’t just the maintenance team that was busy.

“Now. This might be awkward for everyone since it’s your first time. But if you follow the guidelines I give well, you’ll be able to do it without problems.”

Manager Seo gathered the employees reassigned from each subsidiary in one place today and continued his speech.

“There are two things we need to remember. First, abandon your ego. Literally. Once full-scale trading begins, instructions from the President will come down. We just need to do what the President tells us. If he says buy, we buy. If he says sell, we sell.”

So they just need to buy and sell according to instructions?

“Second is that we must not let our guard down for even a single moment. Because the President’s instructions come down by the second, you might momentarily get confused or press the wrong button. We must always be on edge to prevent such mishaps. Remember, one mistake can cause losses in the hundreds of billions.”

“!?”

“H-hundreds of billions?”

At the words that pressing one wrong button could lose that much money, the employees’ faces went pale.

“Don’t worry about mistakes. That’s why we gathered you in advance like this—to prevent that as much as possible. Now, from now on, follow the employee you see next to you to the training room. There you’ll practice with a training program that lets you execute buys and sells quickly without mistakes.”

“Training program?”

“There’s something like that too?”

Following Manager Seo’s signal, employees began guiding them.

“Everyone please come this way!”

“Please sit in seats according to the number plates you received.”

“We’ll make announcements and you can train on buying and selling accordingly!”

Following those instructions, employees filed out en masse.

Once things were organized, Manager Seo let out a sigh of relief.

“But this is going to be fine, right?”

“Why?”

“Everyone looks a bit… clueless. What if someone makes a mistake? Plus there are so many people. Someone is inevitably bound to make a mistake.”

That’s why they created the training program.

To reduce mistakes through intense training before actual deployment.

“But I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Hm? Why?”

“The employees reassigned this time—President Jeong personally selected all of them.”

“What? The President personally picked that many people?”

“Yes. He scanned through the employee lists from KW Exchange to the subsidiaries and picked the necessary personnel from among them.”

“Wow…”

So there was such a process.

“He didn’t say what criteria he used to pick them, did he?”

“No. I don’t know that.”

Nobody knows President Jeong Jin-ho’s criteria for selecting new employees. Because looking at the people selected so far, it’s not because they have good academic backgrounds, nor is it because their trading ability is particularly outstanding.

But in Manager Seo’s experience, the President always selects and places exactly the right employees in exactly the right positions.

And today he temporarily reassigned that many personnel.

What does that mean?

“He picked only people without egos…!”

“Pardon?”

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

Since there’s inevitably a time difference between Europe and our country, we have to wait until afternoon for their markets to open.

So today all employees came in late.

Of course, Prime Department employees came in from morning like me and were still working.

“Everyone’s working hard. For no reason.”

“Ah, no. Getting paid this much, honestly I have no complaints even working 24 hours. Haha.”

“Is the data organization done?”

“Yes. From data organization to dividing money into teams as you instructed, it’s all done.”

I checked the list Manager Seo handed me.

This investment would be conducted divided into multiple teams.

When I press the button assigned to each team from the control tower, my voice gets transmitted to that side and instructions are given, then they immediately execute buys or sells.

“I’ll have to be careful not to confuse the buttons.”

“Yes. The maintenance team also wrote team names in big letters on each button so you can see well, but when the situation gets urgent you might still make mistakes.”

I pressed each button in advance.

We haven’t started investing yet, but I felt excitement and dopamine filling up to the top of my head.

For some reason, it felt like running a large raid after a long time.

In actual games too, don’t you divide raid members into teams and give instructions when running large raids with many people?

But this was a far bigger game than that.

Because I’m about to have a showdown with the European market holding 500 trillion won.

“But President. Will you really be okay?”

“What?”

“The EU doesn’t know we’re day-trading. And if the market significantly crashes because of this…”

It’s not like I don’t have such worries.

And it was a situation where such concerns could certainly arise.

But why?

The more I hear such talk, the more at ease I feel. I only get the feeling that it will definitely go well.

“It’s fine. It’ll go well.”

“Since you say so, President, I feel at ease too. Then I’ll quickly get the employees ready.”

“Yes. Please do.”

After sending the manager out, I suddenly had a thought.

“Betting while saying it will definitely work out is a gambler’s mindset, they said.”

On top of that, if excitement and dopamine are pumping more than worry, I feel like I heard that’s a symptom of gambling addiction…

…Huh?

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

ENIC is a fairly established investment company in Britain.

Of course, there are grumblings about opaque finances and structure from going completely private and doing family management, but they’ve operated without problems so far.

Especially the revenue from Tottenham, of which they own 85% stake, was better than expected.

They hadn’t won the league championship even once since 1961, and their last cup title was in 2008.

Yet revenue was good.

It was a team with long tradition and history, and thanks to the thick concrete fan base in populous North London.

But they never dreamed corona would sweep the entire world and even destroy that popular sport of football.

“What on earth is happening? We’re under attack!”

But they only realized today that was just the beginning.

“At first we thought it was coincidence too. But only the stocks we’re holding are being attacked by market forces one by one, and prices are fluctuating wildly.”

ENIC’s chairman, Joe Lewis, had received a strange report a few days ago.

It was that the EU would bring in astronomical money through an agreement with Gwangwoon.

The problem was that after Gwangwoon stabilized CDS, they would have a condition that they could invest money in the market as they pleased.

In other words, a declaration that they wouldn’t stop even blatant manipulation of stock prices.

Does this make any sense!

The funny thing is, through that, the US market successfully revived.

“It seems the EU was also aiming for that effect, but…”

“But these crazy bastards are day-trading?”

“Yes. Normally, if you repeat buying and selling at this rate, financial authorities wouldn’t leave you alone. But seeing that no one is stopping the trading, this is clearly Gwangwoon’s doing. They’re currently indiscriminately spraying money across all of Europe and delivering massive shocks to the market.”

Is this something that can happen in the 21st century?

A single outlaw was shaking the entire European market.

With indiscriminate bombardment at that!

“But surprisingly it’s effective. As the overall market suddenly started rising, many funds and investment companies began joining in, and individual investors are also explosively increasing. The problem is—”

“Only our stocks are left out?”

“Yes. Everything we were shorting is getting short-squeezed, and conversely, everything we’re long on is falling.”

“Without exception?”

“Yes. Without exception.”

“Then what? Gwangwoon is intentionally attacking us!”

But is that even possible?

ENIC is a private company.

Also, only insiders know what portfolio they’ve spread their capital in. That meant one thing.

“Does that mean there’s a traitor among us…?”

“!?”

The executives looked at each other.

Everyone was vehemently denying it wasn’t them.

“…”

Lewis’s head started to hurt.

He didn’t even know how to catch the stocks that were currently plunging, and now he had to catch an internal spy too.

“Didn’t I advise you back then that Gwangwoon is the one company you absolutely must not mess with?”

When they offered to sell Tottenham to Gwangwoon at twice the price.

One of the executives had warned they absolutely should not make such a request.

There’s a saying going around the financial market right now.

You can touch anything else, but never touch Gwangwoon.

But Chairman Lewis had ignored that advice.

He was just trying to openly catch a sucker.

But perhaps he shouldn’t have ignored those words after all.

Because as the rumors say, no matter who the opponent is, Gwangwoon always retaliates.

Just like right now.