Chapter 18
Translator: Dreamscribe
Slurp-.
Ah. How long has it been since I had such leisure?
Even though the market was in full swing, Manager Kim Sang-gon was leisurely enjoying a cup of coffee.
Just a few days ago, the Risk Management Team had been relentlessly busy.
It was because the market had been constantly fluctuating, and whenever the traders made excessive investments, they had to ban trades, send warning messages, and endlessly monitor them.
But today, there was no need for that.
All the traders had jumped into the Chinese market.
When the market was this stable and hitting the upper limit, there was nothing for the Risk Management Team to do.
That’s why he was enjoying his coffee like this.
Until just a moment ago.
“Manager. About that new team.”
New team?
Ah. The one where that Jung Jin-ho got appointed as Team Leader.
“Why?”
“The trades over there are strange.”
“Strange trades? Are they going all-in on a single stock again?”
“No. It’s not that. They’re pouring money into a sector that no one else is touching. I sent a warning message just in case, but it seems like they’re just ignoring it?”
“Tsk. Hold on.”
Jung Jin-ho.
Not even a Department Head could touch that man.
Maybe the only person in the company who could touch him was the CEO.
So Manager Kim Sang-gon had been staying out of it too.
“Huh what, what is this.”
Manager Kim Sang-gon doubted his own eyes.
Team 7’s investment flow was completely going against the current trend.
Now that he became team leader, he’s slowly starting to act strange again?
“Here, even with the China ETFs, and shorting the steel sector too. He even bought put options?”
“Yes. Right now, China’s in an unprecedented boom, so everyone’s throwing themselves into the upward trend. But they’re doing the exact opposite.”
Manager Kim Sang-gon also knew well how the market was flowing.
It wasn’t just traders who understood the trend.
Risk managers also had to be clearly aware of the current meta so they could either halt the counterpart’s trades or leave them alone.
“Pouring funds into places where no one else is investing right now means......”
They’re expecting a China bubble burst!
“Is he crazy?”
If you open up any economic newspaper right now, you won’t find a single article predicting a collapse of the China bubble. Rather, they were filled with rosy hopes that the Chinese stock market would rise at least twice as much.
Abandon both the domestic and US markets and run to the Chinese market!
That was the trend right now.
‘Is it because he feels pressured to prove something? Or is it just arrogance?’
He was someone who had been promoted at lightning speed, so maybe he felt pressured to show an investment different from others.
Or maybe he had fallen into a delusion and was making a misjudgment.
“What should we do? Should we force all the trades to be withdrawn and halt them now?”
The power of the Risk Management Team was stronger than people thought.
Even if the opponent had a higher rank, if the Risk Management Team blocked the trades, there was nothing they could do.
But if the person to be stopped was someone higher than your own superior, the story changed.
“.......”
Manager Kim looked toward Team Leader Sung Il-gu, who was far away.
Did he know about this? Or was he pretending not to know, even though he did?
Team Leader avoided Manager Kim’s gaze.
“Whew. Just leave them alone.”
“What? What if they lose all the money? They’re already the only team flashing blue right now.”
“Deputy Manager Yoo. In company life, there are times when you have to pretend you didn’t see something, even if you did. This is one of those times.”
He never thought he’d say something like this.
But what choice did he have?
No matter how much authority the Risk Management Team had, there were areas they couldn’t intrude upon.
‘But...... isn’t 50 billion a bit much?’
A newly formed team looked like it was about to blow up right away.
* * *
‘It’s the first time I’ve seen it this quiet.’
The moment the signal for the market to open dropped, securities firm would instantly turn into a battlefield. Back when I was a junior, I had roamed through that war zone delivering documents, coffee, snacks, and so on.
I delivered so many things.
But now, it felt more like a typical office space.
‘Everyone must have put money into China and is just leaving it there.’
Many prop traders are day traders, living off what they earn each day.
But sometimes, they hold stocks for over a week.
Especially when the market is showing rapid short-term growth like now.
Knock knock-.
“Ah, yes.”
“Team Leader nim. I brought some coffee and light snacks. Please have them while you work.”
“You didn’t need to bring these......”
“Hehe. There’s nothing to do right now anyway. Oh! And these cookies, I made them myself!”
“I’ll savor them......!”
“Then enjoy them~.”
I could feel that Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin was watching my reaction.
It wasn’t just Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin.
The entire team was watching my reaction.
‘It’s only natural.’
Two days ago, our team collectively bet on the collapse of the China bubble.
But while the other teams were all holding long positions and making profits without even selling, we were still flashing blue.
No one said it directly to me, but now that I was sitting in the Team Leader’s seat, I could see their expressions much more clearly.
Eyes filled with doubt, wondering whether we should take a stop loss now and jump on the bullish market.
‘But I was certain about the feeling back then.’
It seemed like the sensation of that intense thrill still remained slightly.
Even when I was choosing stocks in front of the manager based on the data from the Research Team, I only selected the ones that gave me a strong, clear feeling.
If something felt even a little uncertain, I didn’t even look at it.
But there was still no sign of the China bubble bursting, and instead, it was continuing to rise even further. Since I’m only human, I was starting to get nervous.
‘What if the bubble bursts six months from now?’
The downside of this ability is that I have to rely on my own feelings.
If it were something like a Status Window from a novel or something I could actually see, that would’ve been nice.
Or if it showed me the future vividly.
Given the situation, all sorts of thoughts were crossing my mind.
“Should I just take a stop loss now before it’s too late...... no.”
I held my wavering mentality together.
Suddenly becoming a Team Leader and having the amount of capital under my management increase dramatically, maybe the pressure from that was getting to me.
But I’ve come this far with this one special ability that no one else knows about.
So let’s not waver. Let’s trust in this ability to the end.
Crunch-!
Resolving myself, I bit into the precious cookies that the deputy manager said she had made herself.
“Ah-.”
Deputy Manager.
Baking...... doesn’t seem to be your strength.
* * *
“This damn cigarette. I really need to quit.”
Lately, Manager Seo had been smoking more often.
Normally, once the market opened, he’d be too busy trading to even think about smoking.
But now, all he had was time.
“But there are a lot of people here.”
However, it wasn’t just Manager Seo who had spare time.
The smoking area, which should’ve been quiet at this hour, was full of traders.
“Oh? Manager Seo. You must’ve come out because there’s nothing to do either.”
There were former team members there.
“Well yeah. Who has anything to do now? Everyone bought China ETFs and is just holding.”
“I even heard that some other teams got approval from upper management to enable overseas trading so they could buy Chinese stocks directly.”
"Plus, raw materials and steel are continuously rising now, aren't they? I heard the futures department is swimming in money.”
“.......”
Manager Seo silently puffed on his cigarette.
“How’s it going with your team, Manager Seo?”
“Eh. What’s there to say. The Chinese side is breathing fire right now. Flames everywhere.”
“Kekeke. Seriously, even a kid could click around and money would just multiply, right?”
Everyone seemed thrilled.
Of course they would be.
It’s a bull market where you just throw in money and get more back.
You could tell just by the fact that people were leisurely smoking at such a busy hour.
“Manager. Aren’t you going back in?”
“Ah, yeah. I’ll stay a bit longer. You guys go ahead.”
“Got it.”
With a heavy heart, Manager Seo sat on a bench and stared blankly into the air.
No matter how he looked at it, China’s uptrend didn’t seem like it was going to end here.
You could tell just by the atmosphere here at the smoking area.
Usually filled with every curse word imaginable, it was now blooming with laughter.
Everyone was filled with high expectations about how much performance they would achieve this month.
“Are we just supposed to sit around sucking our thumbs then?”
After sitting for a while, Manager Seo sighed and got up.
Still, he had to get back to work.
Even though he didn’t know what exactly he was supposed to do.
“......Hm?”
But when he returned to the department, it was as if everyone had flames lit under their seats, people were running around like mad.
Anyone watching would think a war had broken out.
“W-What’s going on? What happened to everyone?”
“Manager! Why are you just getting here?!”
“Hey, Deputy Manager Lee. What’s got everyone so panicked?”
The team members all had pale faces.
“Just now, CSRC announced they’re going to regulate margin trading!”
“What?!”
CSRC.
China Securities Regulatory Commission.
In other words, the Chinese government had officially announced that they were going to crack down on margin trading. [TL Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_(finance)]
“That’s why everyone’s going nuts right now. You know. Most of the money concentrated in the Chinese stock market right now is margin trading."
The reason for China’s rapid short-term stock market growth was the Chinese government’s stimulus policies.
The so-called margin trading.
Buying stocks on borrowed money.
If you had 10 million won, you could borrow up to 100 million won, ten times the amount, to do margin trading.
Because of that, Chinese citizens had been buying stocks with massive leverage.
The problem was, if they suddenly regulate all that freely available margin trading, the Chinese stock market would inevitably start to fall.
Then the people who bought stocks with margin would all get margin called, and due to lack of collateral, they’d be forced to liquidate their positions.
Because of that, even regular investors holding stocks would fall into panic and dump their shares.
The start of an endless vicious cycle.
That was exactly the bubble collapse.
"These crazy bastards were encouraging people to buy stocks just a few days ago."
“And now they pull this sudden backstab?! Damn it. Really."
“Sell, everyone sell fast! If you're late even a second, it'll all be worthless paper!”
Just moments ago, these same people were talking about using this month’s bonuses to trade in their import cars. Now, they were in a panic, shouting at each other.
They tried to stop their losses as quickly as possible, but the problem was that sell orders were flooding in while no one was buying.
“.......”
While every team was flipping upside down,
Only one team was watching the fire across the river.
To be exact, even they were in shock, staring blankly.
“T-The bubble really burst... just like Team Leader said?”
“How did Team Leader even know this would happen.......”
Among the team members who were frozen in panic for a different reason, Manager Seo was the first to snap out of it.
“This is no time to be standing around. Check all the stocks we bought! Quickly!”
"Ah, yes!"
Manager Seo also rushed back to his seat and checked the trading window.
Just before he’d gone out for a cigarette, everything had been flashing blue, but now, everything was breathing fire.
‘This is insane......!’
Manager Seo’s trembling hands wouldn’t calm down.
How in the world had he predicted this?
In all of Yeouido, the only person who had likely predicted the China bubble would burst was Team Leader Jung Jin-ho.
Even if someone else had predicted it, would they have actually bet on it like Team Leader Jung Jin-ho?
Probably not a single person.
That kind of move wasn’t possible unless you had nerves of steel.
And it wasn’t even pocket change, it was a bet with 50 billion won.
“.......”
Looking through the glass wall at Team Leader Jung Jin-ho, Manager Seo swallowed dryly.
Only now did he understand why the former Team Leader had told him to learn well from this man.
Jung Jin-ho wasn’t some parachute hire.
He was simply cut from a different cloth.
Now he understood how such a rapid promotion had been possible, and why no one from upper management had said a word.
Everything made sense now.
‘He’s not human.......’
That was no ordinary person, it was definitely a beast wearing a human mask.
*****
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