12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I took turns watching the left and right monitors and quickly made fun of the keyboard. Hundreds of thousand dollars of stocks came and went in seconds, but I was now quite used to this.

‘Hey, guys, just buy this!’

I looked at the account balance and the stock window. I almost sold out, but one account, which earned +40% and $1,200,000 from buying $3,000,000, was not close to the upper limit price.

It was lunchtime, but the sell order was pushed back. ‘Then shall I just get out of here?’

I had just unloaded $3,000,000 worth of shares at the market price. The stock price was falling. If a big hand like me sold out a large number of shares, there was chaos between ants.

‘Hey guys, well, work hard, then.’ I turned off the HTS and got up. As always, my account was cruising. I had been earning between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000 each month in a stable manner. Thanks to this, even though I paid $10,000,000 in monthly subscription fees, my accounts had risen to $120,000,000. There’d been so much money these days that almost all of it was not even used. In fact, only about $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 was needed to play on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ.

‘Of the $80,000,000 left… first of all, to buy the fourth and fifth companies, I am going to increase the capital to Invictus a little bit. Should I buy a building with what I have left… overseas options are still too much for me…’

I opened an account for overseas options and was practicing with about $100,000 in it, but the earnings were not as good as I expected. First, I’d had unhelpful news, rather than economic news, in the category of the World.

[An Indian man who hasn’t cut his hair in fifty years.]

[Three Pandas were born in China.]

Secondly, even if they came out, they didn’t reflect what they were in stocks.

[OPEC proposes oil reduction.]

[The U. S. presses China, the yuan’s exchange rate is on the rise?]

This might be because there were so many market participants compared to the Korean stock market, and the variables were also complicated. But I practiced for now because I would need to enter this market in the long run. Before I went out for lunch, I turned on the calendar application and looked for stocks to go after.

‘TBES NG’

“Well… earning surprise… Nature’s Gift…” I knew, but I couldn’t quite remember what ‘TB’ was in the front. What was it?

I stared at it hard, and soon I remembered. “Aha, the best! The best earning surprise of Nature’s Gift.”

I remembered. A month ago, that was what the Future News article said. It was the best earning surprise all the time. Nature’s Gift was the number two health-functioning food company in Korea. Recently, sales of health-functional foods made by mixing red ginseng and several medicinal herbs were rising as they became hugely popular on home shopping. Gift sets seemed to have been selling like hot cakes in the last quarter of last year as Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving Day, overlapped the end of the year. So, in the fourth quarter of last year, they literally achieved their best sale record.

‘When it comes to good sales, even if they hear not to buy it, they are willing to buy. Let’s buy some today. What’s disappointing is the total amount of their market capital. The total is only about eight hundred million dollars, so I don’t think I can buy that many shares. Then let’s buy about thirty million dollars, with a target profit of about ten million!’

I set a target like that, and then I made my own purchases and hung up a little more on the limit buying.

‘Limit buying refers to buying and selling automatically when the market price reaches the condition I want. Of course, it’s less efficient than what I do myself; if someone other than me sees the way I work, they will say, “What’s this guy? How does he know the stock price in the future?” However, this is unavoidable. It’s a secret that I have to keep to myself until I die.’

After buying a little bit, I caught sight of the stock price of Kai Games. On the third day of the CBT of the Fantasy War Ground, Kai Games’ stock price was slowly rising. Maybe it was because of the ants who played the game and had an inkling that it would be a big hit.

I got up from my seat and left for lunch. Suddenly, I went into the Kai Games stock bulletin board with my cell phone.

– Fantasy War Ground. This is fun. I will buy more shares as soon as I get paid my salary.-

– The reviews are good and it has a good Gamer’s Rating. It’s a big hit.-

– It’s been thirty years since I’ve played games, and I feel like this is it. Hold it tight!-

– The major shareholder bought a lot… Han Sang-hoon seems to be an able man.-

At last I saw an article praising me. I grinned at it. Then, in the meantime, a text message came in from Secretary Seo, ‘Boss, two days from now, Ahn Yong-kyun, CEO of Blue E&M will come to thank you. Please come to work then.’

I wrote back, strolling around Gangnam Station. ‘Yes, I see.’

——————————-

“Thank you, Mr. CEO. I’ll do my best not to harm your name.”

“Yes. I hope you’ll continue to do well.”

“Yes, sir.”

After he went out of the president’s office, Vice President Jang congratulated me, too. “Congratulations, boss. This is the third acquisition.”

“Thank you. You have done a good job, Vice President.”

This was after the investment in Blue E&M was completed. Only two companies were left until I reached Master Class. I said to Vice President Jang, “So there’s no more to invest in?”

“I’ve been looking for something, but… there’s no business that fits exactly what you want. They’re all too big or too dangerous.”

“What’s left of the money?”

“Nearly none.”

Invictus Investment had nearly run out of money to invest in Blue E&M and buy a stake in Kai Games in the market. I stroked my chin and thought, ‘If I get a higher grade, the benefits are good, but…’

Even now my personal account was stably earning money. Kai Games, invested in by Invictus Investment, would soon surge. I wouldn’t have to overdo it or buy a company that was big enough to run with the seed money. It was all just a matter of time. It might take half a year.

“Yes, I see. Don’t overdo it and look for it slowly. I’ll give you a capital increase as soon as you find it.”

“Yes, boss,” Jang answered me and left the president’s office.

‘All right, so this is done… I’ll make more money. If I have money, it’s nothing to take over a company. It’s a procedural matter anyway…’ I turned on HTS thinking to buy more shares of the targeted Nature’ Gift. I’d already bought ten million dollars worth of the stock for the previous two days.

‘I’ll buy another ten million dollars worth today. After the weekend… if I buy another ten million dollars by next Wednesday… The evening surprise news is coming up that day.’

A rough schedule worked itself out. I made up my mind and checked the stock of Nature’s Gift in the stock window. Nature’s Gift was undergoing some strong adjustments in the -6% range today, perhaps because of the fatigue, it had been up to for a while. It was a pretty depressing report card for the ants. Of course, I didn’t mind. Maybe I was losing around six hundred thousand dollars today. But I didn’t feel even a little emotional, because I knew it was not a big deal, and it was going to go up eventually.

‘It’s better to buy it cheaply when the stock price goes down.’ I bought more shares, thinking that. But, strangely enough, the sell orders continued.

‘Umm…?’ I thought it was a little strange, but I kept buying more shares. To be honest, I was a little overconfident. After all the winning streaks, even I kept looking at the sell orders, I thought, Why are they selling their stocks like such a fool? Let’s see. I’m going to buy twenty million dollars more from now on, and it will finally go up.’ I thought so and I continued to buy the shares. I changed my accounts to buy and as expected, the stock price went up.

-2%. There was no stock that would not go up if I bought. There were not very many poker players as big as me in the first place. But then, about half an hour later, all of a sudden, there was more selling, and -22% of the time, the lower VI (Volatility Interruption) was caught at -30%.

‘Uh?’ I finally stopped buying, feeling a little queer. ‘What is this?’

In the meantime, the stock price was at -30%. It had been pushed to the lower limit price, and the sales residuals had begun to pile up at the lower limit price. I already bought over thirteen million, so I had lost nearly four million dollars today alone.

‘This… this is something happening.’ I turned on the Explorer calmly. Even though four million was big money, this was also money that could be easily recovered in a day or two. Of course, it would be hurt a little if the thirteen million that I put down was blown away.

‘A company worth eight hundred million dollars is not going to go bankrupt in a day or two…’ I thought so and went into the portal site and searched for ‘Nature’s Gift.’ Two or three articles appeared.

[A person was found dead after taking Nature’s Gift Healthy Food.]

‘Oh, my God.’ Someone must have died from eating the healthy food. I touched my forehead. If this was it, I couldn’t guarantee if it was a company worth eight hundred million in total.

‘The earning surprise news is next Wednesday… In the meantime, I can’t believe this is happening.

‘It’s like winning a Lotto, running for a bank and being hit by a truck. But this happens sometimes in the stock market. This is the bad news when I’m waiting for a signal, but someone hits me behind.’

“No, they have to write this up in the article of the earnings surprise!” In the future news, it only said, ‘The best earning surprise of the fourth quarter of last year.’

I came back to the stock window with my lips pursed. The lower limit price was piled up to more than ten million dollars. This was the lower limit price, I had nothing to do.

‘I am going to have to be a little bit more determined tomorrow, too. I might lose anywhere from a third to half of the thirteen million. Ah, I haven’t been so alert lately… If it is the earning surprise news, it isn’t a hundred percent good news.’

I watched it, reflecting, but I recalled the stock price that was being adjusted in the -6% range at the beginning of the market. Maybe a few people knew last quarter’s earnings surprise. That’s why the stock price kept going up… So, did some people know the bad news today, too?

I thought so. Come to think of it now, before it was announced to the press, someone had hurriedly disposed of their shares. I felt slightly offended by that thought. I went back to the portal site and looked for more of the death story. Now, ‘Nature’s Gift’ was already hot enough to be at the top of the real-time search word list. I looked in the order in which the news came up. The first press to report the incident was ‘Light Economic News,’ but it was a familiar name.

This was definitely the company that first released an article with my name on it when I bought OH Entertainment. It was the company operated by Lee Won-jae, director of the Daewon Daily News.

I turned my eyes on the monitor and looked at my cell phone.