Chapter 7

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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‘Should I seriously buy a car?’

Some might say, what car is a guy who hasn’t even gotten his first paycheck buying?

But now I understand why securities firm employees prefer to drive.

Since work starts so early, if you miss the first train you’re late, and even if you safely catch the first train, the timing is really tight.

At least it’s fortunate that the seniors don’t come that early, so there’s less pressure.

‘Huh?’

But today, for some reason, everyone from juniors to seniors to team leaders were all gathered in the office.

‘Did the market open early today?’

Everyone running around crazily busy didn’t look normal.

“Jin-ho. You’re here?”

“Ah. Sorry. I’m a bit late, right? I didn’t know everyone would be here so early.”

“It’s okay. You came earlier than usual work time. And there was a big issue yesterday, so that’s why.”

“Big issue?”

“Yes. The Indonesian government suddenly made a bombshell announcement that they’d reduce nickel production by 30%.”

“Ah.”

I didn’t really understand why the Indonesian government reducing nickel production was such a big issue, but I nodded for now.

Fortunately, our angel-like Assistant Manager Lee Hye-rin always provides thorough additional explanations.

“Just yesterday, we predicted that the battery sector was all in a slump and stock prices would fall for a while, right? But this changes the situation. Companies holding a lot of nickel will get windfall profits and their stock prices will obviously pump. Several teams took short positions yesterday, and you know, right? If you get short positions wrong, the losses are huge.”

I’ve been studying stocks hard lately.

So there were terms I was gradually understanding.

Usually when institutions take short positions, it means they executed short selling.

It’s a strategy to profit by anticipating a specific stock price will fall, and many institutions use it for risk management.

The problem is if you bet on a stock price falling but the price rises more than expected, the losses are very large.

This is exactly why everyone came to work from the crack of dawn and went into emergency mode.

Everyone was busy checking what stocks they bought after taking short positions expecting battery stocks would obviously fall, and then this situation broke out.

“The scariest thing is that no one can predict which stocks will rise how much, or which stocks will fall how much.”

They say no matter how much humans struggle, they can’t beat nature.

Stocks are the same.

No matter how thorough the analysis and preparation, you can’t beat fluctuations that come like natural disasters.

“Didn’t our team also touch a lot of battery stocks yesterday?”

“Fortunately, our team leader told us to do it moderately and get out, so the damage won’t be big. Other teams are in chaos, though.”

Thank goodness the team leader has good intuition.

But wait.

‘Wasn’t the stock I bought yesterday also battery-related?’

Then what happens to that?

“Assistant Manager Lee, Employee Jeong. This isn’t the time to be idle! Hurry and pull the materials! Quickly!”

“Ah, yes! Jin-ho. Let’s hurry!”

Right. It was mock investment anyway.

Let’s not worry about it.

I just need to faithfully do my work here.

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

“.”

Team Leader Park and his team members were looking at the stock market with even more serious faces today.

The stock market bombed by Indonesia’s random bombshell announcement.

You might ask what’s the big fuss over just that.

But it is scary.

Because this is the K-stock market.

The domestic market is unique.

When a Noru typhoon blows, Noru Paint rises, and when avian flu (AI) increases, completely unrelated artificial intelligence (AI) stocks rise.

This is called “keyword investing,” and things that are hard to find examples of in other countries happen constantly in our country’s stock market.

This is possible because our country has a high participation rate of individual investors in the stock market, and theme stock culture is strongly established.

Also, it’s a country where herd mentality works very strongly, so stock prices skyrocket with the psychology of “if others buy, I must buy too.”

This is why they say if you just follow the trends well in the domestic market, you’re already halfway there.

And that was exactly the problem.

How will this herd mentality interpret Indonesia’s announcement?

“Aah. It’s rising.”

“This is crazy.”

When the stock market opened, groans burst out from everywhere.

“Please buy! Please!”

“No. How high is the price going to go?”

Seniors from other teams were getting very angry.

Even team leaders don’t touch them at times like this.

When money is flying away before your eyes, how can you hold onto the thread of reason?

Even though it’s company money, all of it returns as their own performance, and for traders whose incentives are practically their salary, it was maddening.

“Team Leader. All battery-related stocks are rising right now, aren’t they?”

“For now, yes. But they’ll gradually fall. Because word will spread quickly that only places with the most nickel will have long-term profits. How much loss do we have?”

“Fortunately, the places we shorted on our side cut losses quickly. The problem is the stocks other teams have. A proper short squeeze seems to have exploded.”

Short squeeze.

The name securities firm traders fear most.

They’re so careful that they’re even cautious about mentioning short squeeze normally.

“Not just us, but other securities firms also went in short a lot. The Korea Exchange is calling margin and it’s total chaos.”

Short squeeze refers to a situation where investors who made short sales are forced to buy as stock prices surge, causing stock prices to skyrocket even more.

In other words, securities firms like Gwangwoon Securities that took short positions on battery stocks expecting them to fall suddenly see stock prices rise and try to cut losses quickly, but there are no selling orders, so prices naturally rise, and losses from shorts grow even more in a vicious cycle.

At least it’s fortunate that our country has daily price fluctuation limits.

Upper limit maximum 15%

Lower limit maximum 15%

But that doesn’t mean we can relax.

When trading concentrates crazily like this, there might be no selling orders for several days, and then those who took short positions only see losses increase.

And right now there was exactly one such stock.

[Daehan Solution +15%]

Daehan Solution reached the upper limit of 15% in a short time.

Trading doesn’t stop, but since the price can’t rise any further for the day, only buy orders kept piling up endlessly.

“.”

Team Leader Park Hong-seo always poured all his concentration only there when the stock market opened.

But today, he absolutely couldn’t concentrate.

Eventually, he closed all trades early.

Anyway, right now money was rushing to one sector and no selling orders were coming out, so he just had to sit there twiddling his thumbs.

“But how did he know about this?”

Does he have connections to the Indonesian government or something?

Otherwise, how could he go all-in on a stock that other institutions weren’t even paying attention to?

“.”

Team Leader Park stared intently at Jeong Jin-ho busily running around doing errands outside. Perhaps feeling that piercing gaze, Jeong Jin-ho glanced this way briefly, then quickly turned his head away.

‘Should I ask? No. He probably won’t answer anyway.’

He won’t even tell me what his relationship with the president is, and he’ll probably just brush it off saying he was lucky like last time with Jungang Insurance.

In other words, he can’t share his investment secrets.

‘But then why does he work so hard at menial tasks?’

Jeong Jin-ho.

What on earth is his identity?

Could he be a super-elite talent the CEO brought from somewhere?

But his specs are.

‘This won’t do.’

If the other party doesn’t intend to answer, he doesn’t want to press.

Also, Team Leader Park doesn’t want to keep someone without skills on the team.

Conversely, he doesn’t want to let someone overflowing with skills waste away either.

‘I have no choice but to forcibly drag him out.’

The market hadn’t ended yet, but Team Leader Park, having made his decision, abruptly stood up from his seat and headed somewhere.

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

Bang!

Team Leader Park Hong-seo hitting the desk hard and leaving.

I was worried whether the desk had broken from those hulking muscles.

“The team leader seems really angry too.”

“Who wouldn’t be? On a day like today, you know, Jin-ho?”

“Yes. Never smile. Lower shoulders. Bow head. Right?”

“Good. You remember very well.”

“After listening to that special lecture while eating a bowl of udon yesterday. Haha.”

“Shh. You can’t laugh!”

Everyone at the securities firm is on edge today.

Like a bloodbath will break out if you touch them even slightly.

Plus, curses are coming from all directions, so the atmosphere is very rough.

“The team leader glared at me so hard before leaving. What did I do wrong?”

“Maybe because Jin-ho has a cheerful-looking face.”

“Ugh. I’ll be careful.”

Powerless scapegoats like us juniors just hope this storm passes quickly.

“I want to become a senior soon too. Oh right! My stocks!”

“Did you put some in? I thought our company prohibits personal investment.”

“It’s not completely prohibited. Of course, the procedures to get prior approval are complicated, so everyone doesn’t do it. Anyway, I mean our mock investment stocks, not real ones.”

“Ah!”

Assistant Manager Lee Hye-rin hurriedly checked her mock investment stocks.

She soon looked tearful.

“No. I was too busy to check. Everything rushed to the battery side, so everything I barely earned yesterday got wiped out.”

I also checked the stock price I’d bought with mock investment.

“Gasp.!”

At the graph trying to pierce the sky, I gasped and covered my mouth.

“Jin-ho also got shocked seeing the stock price fall. Don’t be too discouraged. This is mock investment anyway, right? Let me see.”

“Ah, you shouldn’t look.”

“It’s okay. I won’t tease you, so let me. Eek!”

Lee Hye-rin, who approached to comfort me, also saw the graph and was shocked.

“W-wait. 15%? Jin-ho, you were holding today’s hottest stock? No. H-how?!”

“I told you not to look.”

“Jin-ho. Are you like an investment genius or something?”

“No.”

Then the assistant manager suddenly covered her face with both hands.

“Aah. I’m embarrassed. Yesterday I bought just one bowl of udon and gave a lame stock lecture to a genius like this.”

“No. Yesterday was really helpful tips. And you also bought me udon and shrimp tempura yesterday.”

“Aaaah. You must have laughed at me inside.”

“N-no I didn’t.”

“Now I’ll serve you as my mentor. Jeong Jin-ho, mentor-nim.”

“Ah, really!”

She was truly impossible to stop.

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

“Director. Do you have a moment?”

“What? The market hasn’t even closed, what brings you here?”

“You know. Anyway, right now everyone just has to twiddle their thumbs. I’m coming after handling all the urgent stuff.”

“Geez. Sit down first.”

As soon as Team Leader Park sat down, he got to the point.

“I want to promote a junior to senior.”

“I was going to offer you something to drink. You’re in a hurry. Plus, suddenly promoting to senior? I thought you came because of this nickel situation.”

“Fortunately, our team didn’t take a big hit.”

“Right. The other guys are the problem. How much loss they’ll take this time. Ugh. I’m going crazy. I told them to do it safely, but those bastards get obsessed with picking up pennies.”

“They say every little bit adds up.”

“Right. What fault is it of yours guys? This is all because those Indonesian bastards pulled that crap.”

Perhaps frustrated, Director Lee Tae-ho gulped down a cup of water.

I don’t know how many glasses of cold water he’s drunk just today.

“So, who do you want to promote? Do we already have a junior with enough time in?”

“He’s a friend who just came in as a new employee not long ago.”

“Wait. Are you talking about that parachute new employee?”

“Yes.”

Hearing that, Director Lee Tae-ho’s expression changed oddly.

“Park Hong-seo, you bastard. I didn’t see you that way, but are you riding coattails too?”

It’s understandable he’d misunderstand like that.

Promoting a junior who hasn’t even been here a week to senior?

This would be unprecedented in Gwangwoon Securities history.

“I know you’re misunderstanding. But it’s not for that reason.”

“Then? Are you saying that parachute is an investment genius or something, so you’ll promote him to senior?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“He’s a friend with talent in investing.”

Director Lee Tae-ho stared blankly at Team Leader Park.

Team Leader Park, that guy doesn’t have a fingernail’s worth of humor sense.

That’s why he’s serious about everything.

“What did you see to say that?”

“This new employee did mock investment exactly twice. This is the report on the results.”

“What? Jungang Insurance, and Daehan Solution? He picked these two himself?”

“Yes. He says it’s luck, but you always told me when I was a junior, Director. If luck overlaps more than twice, it’s no longer luck.”

This guy makes me recall old memories with unnecessary words.

“Can you take responsibility for this? What if this guy loses company money?”

“He’s a parachute the CEO inserted, won’t you cover for him anyway?”

“What?”

“Just like you taught me before, Director, I only invest in safe assets.”

“Crazy bastard.”

With a face without a hint of laughter saying such things, Director Lee couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief.

Park Hong-seo.

As always, he was still a guy who’s serious about everything.