Chapter 126

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“They say there are internal meetings about when to change the policy on the asset management company. Vice President Kang Ji-hwan also has an opinion that it might be time to open the management company to the general public.”

“But if we open the asset management company to general customers, wouldn’t that essentially be throwing down the gauntlet to Kangsung and KS, the two giant asset management companies in our country?”

“Deputy Lee. That’s not a gauntlet.”

“Then…?”

“It’s a notice. That we’re going to sweep away all their company’s customers.”

“Ah.”

Gwangwoon Asset Management is not yet open to the general public.

Currently they only manage National Pension assets.

However, if Gwangwoon Asset Management were to open domestically, there was even talk that other domestic asset management companies would all have to shut down.

“But we’re tied to Kangsung through semiconductors, aren’t we? They’re giving us a lot of convenience for our sake, and they’ve even shared factories and technology with us. If we use this to poach all their asset management customers, couldn’t the relationship sour?”

“That’s true too…”

The employees looked at me.

“President?”

“…”

But I wasn’t focused on what the employees were discussing. I was thinking about something else instead.

‘What on earth was that?’

One of the stocks I saw yesterday.

GameStop.

Others had ordinary colors, but that one alone was uniquely different.

Bizarre, and seemed filled with madness, yet on the other hand something like almost understanding but not quite.

I was flustered because it was a type of stock I’d never seen before.

The problem was I couldn’t figure out why intuition was showing me this stock that way.

“What about the documents I requested yesterday?”

“Ah, yes. You mean GameStop? Here they are.”

As I was about to receive the report the manager handed over, I hesitated.

The fluctuating colors I saw yesterday were swirling across the entire document.

“…”

It was unsettling, but I received the document.

Mixed sensations of madness spread from my fingertips throughout my body.

I examined the report with a frown.

“It’s a place that sells video games offline. Started in 1984 and opened offline stores across America to sell games and enjoyed its heyday… but as you know, the world has changed. Now people prefer online to offline. Above all, they took a direct hit from corona and there are rumors of company crisis.”

The development of the internet shook offline stores.

And smartphone development is now dealing the finishing blow.

The era of visiting offline is gone, and now an era where everything is possible online has arrived.

Corona, that massive epidemic, had a tremendous impact in creating such a world.

“Targeting exactly that, Wall Street is currently conducting large-scale shorting on GameStop. Quite a few players have already taken positions. With hedge funds joining in, the short-sale ratio is continuously rising now.”

“What’s the short-sale ratio?”

“Currently it’s exceeded 50%.”

At that, the employees who were listening made surprised expressions.

“No. 50%?”

“That much? Isn’t that too much?”

Generally, even a 20-30% short-sale ratio is considered high.

But 50% was a very high figure.

“The problem is this might just be the beginning. Everyone seems to have heard rumors from somewhere, and they’re all shorting GameStop. There’s talk in the industry that it could go up to 70%.”

Since short-sellers have bitten, GameStop’s future is decided now.

Soon negative articles about GameStop will burst out from everywhere, and communities will talk as if GameStop will go bankrupt tomorrow.

“It’s the usual pattern. When Wall Street takes a short position, the media writes articles for them.”

Media moves according to money.

Cold as ice to governments, but endlessly warm to those who pay.

“The current stock price is 30 dollars…”

“Yes. It will probably drop to 20 dollars within a few days. Perhaps… are you thinking of shorting here together?”

I shook my head.

There were already many short-sellers attached for us to enter shorting, and even if we had taken a position first, the scale wasn’t particularly large.

In other words, entering now would only make pocket change.

But still, it would be better to confirm through my intuition first.

“…”

My intuition didn’t react to Manager Seo’s question about shorting.

Just that dizzying sensation of chaos lingered nauseatingly on my tongue.

“No. Even if we short the same way, we won’t gain much anyway.”

“True. The scale is too small for our Gwangwoon to enter. Haha.”

So do I just fold on this?

That’s when a light tingle passed by.

Wait, surely they’re not telling me to buy?

As if confirming my thought again, intuition grazed my mind once more.

‘How much?’

I slowly wrote down amounts.

No matter how high I went, intuition didn’t come, so I tried lowering the money this time.

And the amount stopped at a certain line.

“…?”

I tilted my head looking at that amount.

“Manager. Could you… buy just 1 billion of this?”

“Pardon? 1 billion dollars? But this is a stock that’s bound to fall. Above all, whether 1 billion dollars can even be accommodated…”

“No. Not 1 billion dollars…”

I checked a few more times, but the result was the same each time.

“1 billion won.”

“Pardon? W-won? So… only 1 million dollars?”

Manager Seo’s expression looking at me seemed like it would be the same as mine right now.

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

My intuition was continuously developing.

If before I really relied only on feelings, now it had upgraded to the point of showing vivid visions.

So there were many times it showed me stocks through colors.

In such situations, if I went long or short on that stock, the light would disappear by itself.

As if saying I made the right decision.

But this time, that chaotic color still wasn’t disappearing.

Even though I went long with 1 billion won following intuition.

Does that mean there’s something more?

“I heard. You’re not going to open Gwangwoon Asset Management domestically?”

“…?”

At Chairman Kang Seong-ho’s words whom I met after a long time, I paused for a moment.

I’d been so busy with other things lately that I hadn’t paid attention to the asset management side at all.

Especially regarding the domestic opening issue, I knew various discussions had happened, but since I didn’t make a decision, it was put on hold.

But it seemed Chairman Kang Seong-ho and other asset management companies assumed we deliberately weren’t opening domestically.

“The people in that industry were extremely worried. If Gwangwoon opens the asset management company to general customers, everyone would move over there. You’re still an issue right now for writing legends with the National Pension, aren’t you?”

Our Gwangwoon’s corporate brand image was running #1 in Korea.

It suddenly blew up after acquiring Tottenham.

So asset management companies had been nervous.

“But you still haven’t made plans to open domestically. This fits President Jeong’s motto exactly. You always told me. You want to coexist and grow together with domestic companies. So Gwangwoon Asset Management will only handle the National Pension?”

Actually, that wasn’t the intention.

I just hadn’t made plans yet.

But Chairman Kang Seong-ho seemed to misunderstand that I was deliberately not opening domestically to not kill domestic companies.

“Not domestically, but are you going overseas instead?”

That’s when intuition passed by.

“Well, if you dream of being the world’s largest asset management company like BlackRock, that might actually be better. Gather all the overseas capital rather than domestic. Is that the plan?”

Intuition hit me once more.

“…Chairman, you really seem wise.”

“Hahaha. Hearing that from President Jeong of all people makes me a bit embarrassed. I’ve always had a good head.”

The management policy for Gwangwoon Asset Management was decided at this moment.

“And Gwangwoon’s playground has always been overseas. The Bitcoin exchange is also the world’s largest, and if we combine that know-how well with the asset management company? No wait. It would also be good to enter overseas based on that. KW Exchange has its own app, right? You could trade US markets through there.”

“…!?”

The intuition that had been lightly passing by now struck the climax and made my whole body shiver.

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“…I often think this, but Chairman, you really seem to have abundant ideas.”

“Huh? No. Why are you like this today? Lifting me up.”

“Let me fill your glass.”

“Well now. Haha. I don’t know what it is, but I feel good.”

After filling Chairman Kang Seong-ho’s glass, I checked the report stored on my phone again.

“…!”

The GameStop stock that had all sorts of colors mixed in chaotic swirl had returned to normal.

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

“The securities app currently enjoying overwhelming popularity in the US is an app called ‘Robinhood.’ As individual investors explosively increased due to corona, young people flocked to it most. Especially with zero commission fees, you can trade all stocks including futures, ETFs, and even Bitcoin.”

Currently, the hottest securities app in the US was this Robinhood app.

With users numbering in the tens of millions, you could tell how impressive its influence was.

“Bitcoin too?”

“Yes. But the options are limited. Above all, our KW has a firm grip on the Bitcoin side, so competition itself is at an impossible level. But if they keep pushing zero commission and continue expanding services, we can’t guarantee what will happen in the future. They’re still continuing very large growth.”

In other words, they were our threatening competitor.

“We dominate Bitcoin, but when it comes to US stocks, the situation is different. That side has a solid member base, and ours are all concentrated only on Bitcoin.”

“We can’t compete in US stocks?”

“Yes. They have too many loyal members to compete with. That’s why I said we don’t know what will happen with Bitcoin later—Robinhood is showing movements to expand not just in the US but around the world.”

“Above all, for domestic use of US trading, domestic apps link with foreign financial apps in a broker concept, so it’s not easy for Korean companies like us to actually make a financial app in the US itself due to regulations.”

Realistically, it was difficult for Korean companies to make securities apps overseas.

There was a reason domestic securities companies partnered with foreign financial firms.

“However, this is the situation for ordinary domestic financial companies. We’re a bit different.”

“That’s right. We have KW Exchange after all. It’s the most used Bitcoin exchange app in the US too. So just like Robinhood modified their own app to enable Bitcoin trading, we can also change the KW Exchange app to enable US stock trading.”

But for KW Exchange to handle US stocks, there were several things that needed approval.

“SEC broker-dealer registration, FINRA member approval, SIPC member approval, etc. Those three things are exactly why domestic apps can’t advance into overseas securities apps. Getting those approved takes at least 3 years. Rejection probability is high too. But our Gwangwoon doesn’t need to worry about those.”

Those regulations like the Wall of Lamentations were why overseas trading apps couldn’t invade the US.

But our Gwangwoon was different.

“Because during the National Pension situation, the US government provided us with all those licenses.”

The US had lifted all regulations and even granted us licenses so we could play freely in the US stock market.

Who knew this would be useful in this way.

“It’s still valid?”

“Yes. If we submit for review like this and mobilize all our connections, there’s a high chance approval will come within 1 month.”

But even if approval goes well, reality’s wall was still high.

“Even if approved, when people from other countries try to use our app to access US markets, various regulations will inevitably follow. Procedures will be complicated too. That means we’d need to gather users within the US, but that’s already taken by Robinhood and various apps.”

Even if they get past the Wall of Lamentations, if they can’t gather users, it just ends up wasting money.

To service even US stocks, they’d have to hire many more employees.

There would be quite a lot of other expenditures too.

So the employees thought it would actually be better not to do it.

“…”

But my intuition was still reacting strongly to this exchange expansion.

Even though realistically, there was absolutely no way to attract users within the US.

“There’s exactly one way. If Robinhood makes a major blunder and all users leave.”

“But that possibility is too slim. Deputy Lee.”

“That’s… true too.”

In other words, there was no way to beat Robinhood.

Yet seeing my intuition continue to push this.

‘Are they really going to make some unbelievable major blunder?’

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

A 50% short-sale ratio was already an excessively high level, yet it rose to 70%, 100%, and finally 140%—a stock exceeding 100% short-sale ratio for the first time in about 10 years was born.

Short-sellers had piled in to the max, with only the process of drilling through the floor to the basement remaining.

The stock price also reflected reality, already dropping to 20 dollars.

As short-sellers were waiting with mouths wide open like that—

[GameStop’s future is still bright.]

A post appeared on America’s largest community.

-GameStop hasn’t died yet. Our memories haven’t died either.

To summarize, the post said GameStop is struggling now but will come back to life soon.

But that was just narrative. The core of this post was this:

-Let’s kill the shorters piled on GameStop!

Just one post saying if members of this large community each buy just one share of GameStop stock, they could naturally exterminate the short-sellers.

With tens of thousands of posts pouring out daily, it seemed like it would just get swept away, but it properly caught people’s attention.

-Crazy idea. You know this is price manipulation, right? Gathering members here to raise the stock price? Are you insane? -Let’s do it now!

-Short-sale ratio is 140%? So if we combine our strength, we can kill all the forces gathered there?

-Sounds fun.

-Oh. Should I put in some money I have too?

At first it was a post written as a joke.

They didn’t even expect anyone would really buy stock following this.

But—

-What. I just saw the trading window and someone bought 1 million dollars?

GameStop, where there were only sell orders and no buy orders.

Someone had shot up like a signal flare with a 1 million dollar trade.

-Crazy, are we really doing this?

-Then should I go in too?

As rumors spread that some wealthy member saw this post and bought 1 million dollars worth, members also started joining in out of curiosity, one by one.

-Each share is only 20 dollars anyway?

-Ah. Just went up 1 dollar.

-Would be fun if the stock really skyrockets. Though that won’t happen.

Honestly, they didn’t really think they could kill the short-sellers.

It was just entertainment for 20 dollars.

But isn’t there a saying?

-Many a little makes a mickle.

Little by little, a lot is made.