Chapter 28
Translator: Dreamscribe
“Deputy Manager Lee. Do you know what the total return rate was yesterday?”
Han Saet-byul, the newly assigned deputy manager to the Prime Department, spoke in an excited voice.
“How much was it?”
“A whopping 5%! Isn’t that seriously crazy? I mean, how do you earn 5% on 500 billion won in just one day? I haven’t been with the company for long, but I’ve never seen a 5% return in a single day before!”
5%.......
Yeah. That’s a perfectly normal reaction.
Usually, the average daily return for the Prop Trade Department is about 0.1%.
But suddenly 5%.
And not just that, earning 5% on 500 billion won is enough to make anyone lose their mind.
“The Department Head must’ve been a bit disappointed.”
"Huh? Uh, about what?"
“Oh. It’s nothing.”
She had blurted out nonsense without even realizing it.
‘But maybe I’ve gone crazy too.’
Now 5% didn’t even seem that high anymore.
If someone in the Prop Trade Department earned 5% in a day, they’d be called an ace, but in the Prime Department where Jung Jin-ho worked, 5% was just an ordinary figure.
‘Maybe I got infected by the Department Head too.’
This isn’t good.
5% is actually an incredible achievement.
What’s going to happen later!
“Oh, Department Head. You’re here?”
“Good morning, Department Head!”
At last, Department Head Jung Jin-ho arrived at the office.
“Ah, yes. Hello, everyone.”
He lightly acknowledged the greetings from the team members and entered the department head’s office.
“But the Department Head… did something happen? His expression didn’t seem so good.”
“I know, right? With a 5% return rate, if it were me, I’d be grinning from ear to ear.”
Manager Seo shook his head as he watched the newbies.
“You still don’t really know our Department Head.”
"Huh?"
“Didn’t you hear before you came? He got promoted to Department Head in no time after joining as a regular employee.”
“Oh. I heard about that too. They said he achieved a legendary return rate that will go down in history.”
“Exactly. But you only heard the rumors, not the actual figures, right? In that short time, his return rate exceeded several hundred percent.”
“!?”
Even before joining the Prime Department, they had heard various things.
Some said he was a parachute hire.
Others said his performance was phenomenal.
One thing was certain: no matter how well-connected or competent a parachute hire might be, no company would entrust 500 billion won to them.
Moreover, 500 billion won amounts to nearly half of the assets currently managed by Kwangwoon Securities.
If that 500 billion won were to incur losses, it would affect the entire company.
It was essentially the same as entrusting the fate of the company to a single person.
In other words, that’s how valuable Department Head Jung Jin-ho was to the company.
“Se-several hundred percent?!”
“Just how much did he make!”
“Huhu. That’s why someone like him can’t be satisfied with just 5%. And that’s not all. Do you know what kind of feats our Department Head has accomplished…?”
Manager Seo proudly recounted the heroic tales of Department Head Jung Jin-ho.
Some of them were stories he had seen and experienced himself, and the rest were things he had heard from Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin.
But this man.
Was he perhaps a storyteller who dominated the capital in a past life? His storytelling ability was downright vivid and captivating.
Thanks to that, the respect of the already-loyal team members toward Department Head Jung Jin-ho only grew deeper.
‘He was just like that when the team was first created.’
Those memories and Manager Seo’s current self overlapped in Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin's mind, and she let out a quiet laugh.
‘But I heard he was investing until almost 4 a.m. yesterday.’
Isn’t he pushing himself too hard?
***
“Ugh. My stomach hurts.”
Guess eating late-night snacks yesterday was a bad idea after all.
Anyone who’s played a game, especially an RPG, would relate to this:
After a hard raid and defeating a boss, you get really hungry.
So after everything was done, he ordered delivery from a 24-hour restaurant.
But he made the mistake of eating something spicy and ended up with a stomachache all day.
It feels like flames are shooting out from the back.
"Yesterday's return rate was 5%......."
It was a return rate achieved by grinding from the morning until the next day’s dawn.
Until now, the funds had been on hold, so there was no opportunity to put the money to work, but since the FX account opened yesterday, he had been running wild like an unbridled colt.
“It was fun, though.”
Indeed, it was a bit disappointing that the market was frozen and remained stuck in a box range.
Even the FX market, which boasts a daily trading volume of several hundred trillion won, had been quiet, showing just how stiff the current economic market was.
If the volatility had been greater, he probably could’ve earned more than 5%.
“It’s a bit of a letdown, but for a first start, this is fine.”
Let's not be impatient.
One thing he had realized while studying investment was that the market doesn’t stay frozen as long as people think.
Somewhere in the world, an incident always breaks out, causing the global market to shake. Of course, the Korean stock market is often an exception.
But right now, he wasn’t only dealing with the domestic stock market, so he just needed to keep an eye on the global situation.
Then inevitably, an event would occur somewhere.
That would be the beginning of a highly volatile market.
“Department Head. The meeting preparations are all done.”
“Ah, yes. I’ll be there shortly.”
In the past, we used to hold cramped meetings in the Team Leader’s Office.
Now that the department had been formed, we had a dedicated meeting room.
“Anything is fine. If there’s something noteworthy, feel free to mention it.”
Honestly, it might be better to jump into the FX market immediately rather than hold a meeting, but something he had learned from using this ability frequently was that his intuition was triggered by the information that came to him.
So skipping even a single day of meetings was not an option.
Through the information compiled by the department staff in these meetings, he could enhance his intuition significantly.
“The Chinese government is enforcing sell-side restrictions and aggressively trying to stabilize the market, but that’s actually having the opposite effect and making the Shanghai Index even more unstable, Department Head.”
“Above all, the issue is the ice age of the global stock market. Everyone is too scared to buy or sell anything.”
“That’s probably why money is flowing into safe assets. Gold prices are gradually rising, and so is the dollar. The problem is that even safe assets aren’t withstanding this freeze in trading volume.”
“Already, not just in the domestic market but in overseas stock markets too, trading volumes are so low that delisting discussions are happening for quite a few stocks.”
When the market freezes, stocks that already have low trading volumes get delisted.
One of the rules of KOSPI and other overseas stock exchanges is to delist stocks with no trading volume, and people were taking hits because of it.
“So right now, everyone is just looking for safe assets?”
He had a habit during meetings, writing down only the key words from the discussion in a notebook.
“Yes. Gold, dollar, yen, U.S. treasury bonds, German treasury bonds, and also the franc. All the money is flowing into safe assets. I expect even more funds to move in that direction.”
As I was jotting down what Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin was reporting in my notebook,
I suddenly flinched at a certain part, and my handwriting twisted.
‘What was that just now?’
I looked up at Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin.
“Deputy Manager. Could you repeat what you just said?”
“Huh? Oh. Money is flowing into safe assets like gold, dollar, yen, U.S. treasury bonds, German treasury bonds, and the franc…”
That was it.
Franc.
The moment that word came up, my hand trembled so much I couldn’t even write the letters properly.
“If it’s the franc... isn’t that the most trusted safe asset in finance?”
“Yes. Since Switzerland remained safe even during the world wars. And during the global financial crisis, the franc consistently held strong. Most of all, there’s no political risk.”
“Also, the main reason the franc is evaluated as the top safe asset is because of the ceiling limit.”
Swiss currency, franc.
It’s the currency people consider the top safe asset during financial crises or economic freezes like now.
Isn’t it the global neutral country that always comes up when people talk about Swiss banks online? On top of that, it’s a place with very low political corruption, so the risk was minimal.
And the biggest reason of all was the ceiling limit.
There’s a system that mandates a ceiling where no matter how high the euro rises, 1 euro must not exceed 1.20 francs. In other words, if it tries to fall below that price, the Swiss government will inject money to prevent it.
It was essentially an artificial suppression of the franc’s strength, eliminating volatility itself.
Thanks to this ceiling system, the Swiss franc became the world’s most secure safe asset.
“.......”
But why?
Why am I getting a signal here?
Is it telling me to buy a safe asset now and just hold it long-term?
Or is there something else?
Why do we even call it a safe asset?
Because its volatility is low, it’s categorized as a safe asset.
Which means, to a dopamine-driven investor like me, the franc was not an attractive asset.
However, the fact that I’m getting such a strong signal now.......
"Everyone go back right now and dump all the volume you're holding."
“Yes, sir!!”
The moment I finished speaking, the staff members jumped up and ran toward their computers, and I barely managed to stop them.
“Wait a moment!”
“Yes?”
I honestly thought at least one person would question me.
I was about to explain what to buy next, but none of them ever asks why I issue a certain order or what the intention behind it is.
They just move the moment a directive is given.
“After dumping your current positions, buy Swiss francs.”
“Ah, yes!”
Once again, not a single question.
Like robots following programmed commands, they sprinted toward their computers.
***
“He apparently made a 5% profit. On the very first day, at that. I heard he was stirring up the exchange until 4 in the morning.”
“What? 4 a.m.?!”
The 5% return didn’t even register.
What struck CEO Hwang Dae-woon was the fact that it went on until 4 a.m.
“Isn’t that incredible? Especially considering the FX market has been dead lately due to low trading volume. And he still managed to make a 5% profit there.”
“Wait. You’re saying he worked straight through from the morning to 4 a.m. without rest?”
“Yes. Department Head Jung Jin-ho stayed until 4 a.m. working, while the team members rotated in shifts.”
Tsk. This guy.
That gaming habit of his is showing again.
During large-scale raids, the raid leader manages nearly 100 players and rotates them in and out.
It’s fine to apply that experience here, but...
What if the raid leader collapses from accumulated fatigue?
All 100 players would go down with him.
“I’ll need to call him in for a talk before I leave on my business trip. So what about now? What’s he doing? Still grinding away at it?”
“No. It seems Department Head Jung Jin-ho determined that the current market is hopeless, so he suddenly dumped all his funds into the franc.”
“Franc?”
“Yes. He put everything into the world’s safest asset.”
That was somewhat unexpected.
Judging by Jin-ho’s investment style so far, this was beyond wild, it was almost feral.
Anyone else watching would have said he was no different from a beast.
But what’s truly astonishing is that he’s never lost. Not once. Every move has been a win.
Which is probably how he grew that tiny seed fund into 500 billion won.
In short, Jin-ho always enjoyed risky investments.
He’s got the heart of a beast who earns money by taking roads others don’t dare to tread.
And now he bought francs?
That supposedly safest of all assets?
“That’s odd.”
“I agree. It’s definitely strange.”
“Any major developments out of Switzerland?”
“I looked into it out of curiosity, but nothing in particular. The Swiss government did recently intervene with monetary easing due to euro volatility to stabilize things.”
So basically, the franc is behaving as it always has.
But now Jin-ho suddenly went all-in on it?
“You said you’re calling him in later. Maybe try to casually ask him about it...”
“No need. What kind of authority did we give Jin-ho? The whole point was that upper management wouldn’t intervene. Even if that guy invests in the mountain behind the building, we don’t interfere.”
That was the rule CEO Hwang had set.
Not questioning or interfering with Jung Jin-ho’s investments.
“Oh. But CEO-nim, you’re flying out tomorrow, right? Are you all packed and ready?”
“I’ve got it all done. I have to leave on an early morning flight tomorrow, so I’ll be heading out of the office early today.”
“I should be going with you to assist.”
“Hey. If the CEO is away, the Vice President needs to hold down the fort. What if something happens? Don’t you know CEOs and Vice Presidents aren’t even supposed to be on the same flight?”
***
The Guild Master hardly ever calls me to the CEO’s office.
If he wants to talk, he usually just meets me over some grilled pork belly, or we meet up in the game.
But today, he summoned me directly to the CEO’s office.
“You punk. Didn’t I tell you last time during the game? Don’t stay up all night gaming just because you’re young. And now you’ve done it again. Your team rotates shifts, but you keep working nonstop, what the hell are you doing?”
“But I earned a 5% return...”
“Is profit the issue here!? If you collapse, your whole department goes down with you. Don’t you ever run yourself into the ground like that again. You’re making billions, what’s the point if you end up sick?”
My hyung.
He’s never going to be an evil CEO.
If it were someone else, they’d ignore how much I was grinding my body as long as the returns were good.
I was honestly touched.
“Do that one more time, and I’ll shut down the FX account on the spot.”
“Understood, CEO-nim.”
“When it’s just the two of us, just call me hyung.”
“Come on. We’re at work. How could I? I’ll stick to CEO-nim here.”
“You little... Ah, and take the rest of the day off. Go get some sleep. I heard you’ve been trading without rest. Since I’m leaving early today too, why don’t we head out together? I’ll give you a ride home.”
I waved him off.
“No need. I still have a lot to do. By the way, are you all set for the business trip?”
“Yeah. Just about done.”
“You said last time you had a rough time with water when you were overseas.”
I remembered him complaining during a raid once.
“You still remember that?”
“Of course. You described it so vividly that I still haven’t forgotten. But why are you going to Saudi Arabia this time?”
“Isn’t Saudi the land of oil? Lots of money there. And this time, Saudi Arabia is opening its stock market for the first time. It reeks of money, so I need to check it out myself.”
Saudi Arabia is the second-largest oil-producing country in the world.
Thanks to its insanely advantageous geography, it's swimming in massive amounts of cash.
But like many countries in the Middle East, it tends to be closed off.
However, the Saudi government was making efforts to break away from its closed nature in order to further develop the country, and one such move was opening its stock market.
“Still, don’t worry. I packed plenty of medicine this time. I’ve located nearby hospitals in case of emergency. Plus, I’ve got aides coming with me...”
CEO-nim was reassuring me, explaining how thoroughly he had prepared.
“......?”
And then it happened.
‘Huh?’
Right as he was talking, something so intense hit me that my vision blurred and my entire body shook.
Drawn by that feeling, I instinctively grabbed the CEO’s arm.
“Huh? W-What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“CEO-nim. No... hyung.”
Flustered, hyung flinched.
“The Middle East... Can you not go?”
*****
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