The Water Rocket Professor
Hankuk University.
One of the most prestigious universities in the Republic of Korea had recently become the scene of an unsavory incident.
All because of one student's outrageous behavior.
On YouTube, where every kind of incident and accident under the sun gets uploaded, it wasn't even that rare.
"Stock prices don't always move exactly the way you predict…"
"If you're an economics professor, you should at least get that much right."
The target of the provocation was a professor.
A student had pointed out that the professor lacked the necessary qualifications.
Did that even make sense?
A professor at a prestigious university was supposed to be an elite among elites—far above even the elite students.
"According to what you just said, Professor…"
"Hmph! What now?"
"You're saying it's useless in practice. So why exactly are we supposed to learn it?"
"……"
He couldn't even make a sound.
Faced with the student's clear, logical rebuttal, the professor became a mute who'd swallowed honey. His face alone burned with rage.
Once he recovered his wits, the professor looked around at the students in the lecture hall and then—
Class canceled due to personal reasons
—fled the lecture hall as if running away.
A clear admission of defeat.
Ah……
The professor in the video's feelings.
Choi Myeong-cheol knew them all too well as he watched with a bitter heart, even scrolling through the comments.
.
.
.
Criticism of the professor filled the comments.
Looking at the video's content, it was true that he came off as the loser.
"Water Rocket—screeeeech~!"
Conversely, the winner.
The student in the video raised his fist high.
Along with it, thunderous cheers poured out.
The students in the lecture hall celebrated the man's victory.
For someone in Choi Myeong-cheol's position, that scene could only feel extremely unpleasant.
He really is a rude student, that's true……
The video he'd just watched was Part 2.
There was an origin point for how Water Rocket Theory had spread.
He himself had been the protagonist of Part 1.
Choi Myeong-cheol was a professor in the Economics Department at Hankuk University.
And it's not like what he said was wrong, either.
At the time, he hadn't thought much of it.
In a professor's life, you occasionally ran into them.
Students with no sense of propriety.
The type whose self-assertion was so strong they tried to one-up the professor.
Guiding those students was also part of a professor's job.
He'd thought time would fix it.
What needed fixing wasn't him.
The stock prices of domestic automobile export companies that he'd brought up during lecture—
……
—were none other than the stocks he himself had bought.
Choi Myeong-cheol had purchased Future Motors shares not long ago.
Stories floating around the internet.
In truth, it was a point of debate even among economists.
A kind of complex as well.
I understand the economy well, so why can't I apply it in practice?
Choi Myeong-cheol had experienced failure once in the past as well.
The stock he'd bought after long-term analysis.
The subprime mortgage crisis.
He had met the crash alongside the largest, worst financial crisis since the end of World War II.
Fortunately, he had managed to cut his losses at around −30%.
As an economist, he had seen through the global financial crisis.
"I told this guy not to do stocks! You trying to ruin the household!!"
He hadn't been able to avoid his wife's backhand smack, though.
After that, he hadn't even been able to mention the word "stocks."
This time I really thought it was certain.
He had dreamed of a spectacular comeback.
It wasn't greed for money. As a professor, he simply didn't want to feel ashamed in front of his students.
An economics professor ought to be well-versed in stocks too.
He himself agreed with that public opinion.
It was also the reason he had challenged stocks again for the first time in nearly ten years.
He had been excited at the thought of making a killing and bragging about it.
"……For those reasons, Korean automobile industry stock prices have no choice but to get completely wrecked."
It felt like he'd been smashed over the head with a hammer.
No, how in the world could a student like that even exist?
During the lecture he had maintained as much composure as possible.
But honestly, it was a situation where it was impossible not to get angry.
He was a professor.
He had lived several times longer.
He had poured his entire life into the field of economics!
And some mere student who had only just begun learning was pointing out his flaws.
Even spouting weird nonsense about water rockets or whatever.
……
In the end, it had turned out to be correct.
After thinking it over carefully at home, he had been completely unable to find any logic with which to refute it.
That was why Myeong-cheol had sold his Future Motors shares.
And that had become the best decision of his life.
Gulp.
What if he hadn't sold?
He would have taken a −20% crash head-on, and his wife's backhand smack would have hit even harder.
"Try stocks again. Go on, try it. If you want to see me die!!"
He probably would have heard every kind of nonsense imaginable.
Forget stocks—he wouldn't even have been able to breathe freely in his own home.
He would have had to live a hard, grinding life.
The aftereffects of touching retirement funds last a lifetime and then some.
Whew……
It was only natural that a sigh of relief would come out.
Looking back now, the only emotion left toward that student was gratitude.
Of course it wasn't that he wasn't angry.
But the human heart was like that, and once you got older, money was everything.
That student had protected his money.
Perhaps even the fate of being nagged by his wife until the day he closed his eyes for the last time.
Just how……
That was why he was even more curious.
The decision to buy Future Motors.
He himself hadn't made it after just a day or two of fretting.
The company's fundamentals.
Consumer purchasing psychology.
By every indicator, buying had clearly been the right call.
The chart had been pressed down for a long time too.
But results spoke for everything.
The stock price had crashed, and there was no guessing where the bottom even was.
He had predicted that.
Even the process.
The one who had pulled the trigger was none other than Trump.
Combining economic thinking with political insight……
For someone who had devoted his entire life to economics, it was impossible.
Not even Korean politics—American politics.
How could he think of something like that so immediately?
He had passionately argued it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It gave him chills.
It was as if he already knew the future.
Myeong-cheol came to harbor something close to respect for his student.
How do stocks move inside that head of his?
He could not help but pay homage to the insight that saw through the future.
As a fellow scholar.
Economics was the most complex and practical discipline in the world.
He had dedicated his life to researching its principles.
He wanted to know that student's perspective.
He wanted to look at the world from the same viewpoint.
Myeong-cheol decided to test Chanuk's abilities.
"Treat stocks the way you pick a whore."
Recent daily life.
As long as he was a university student, not much had changed in any major way.
"A wh-whore?"
"Sex!"
"Bringing that up all of a sudden is a bit……"
"No, if you make a ton of money you're gonna hit up an office or a hostess bar at least once, right?"
Except for one single thing.
The number of students clinging to him like they were close had increased.
A kind of follower, yeah.
Once you made a name for yourself with stocks, they inevitably attached themselves.
Humans who wanted to make money easily.
They were gathering around the seat where I sat.
To the pitiful living beings begging for knowledge.
"If you pick based on photos, will she be pretty?"
"No."
"I heard the photoshops are insane!"
"What if the manager recommends one?"
"W-well……?"
"Think they'll actually take good care of you……?"
I gave them a lecture.
On how not to get stuck holding the bag like a sucker in stocks.
Is a manager gonna hook you up with the popular girls? They're trying to dump the ones who aren't moving.
True to being early-twenties brats, they were naive.
If someone offered an easy path, the first thing you should do was get suspicious.
"Even if you just filter out the flashy-looking tickers and the ones analysts are strongly recommending, you'll do about average."
"Ooooh!"
It applied to stocks too.
All roads lead to the same place—stocks were ultimately a world of people living their lives.
It's a battlefield where human psychology collides.
Things that only had a big name.
Things where a price rise was already priced in.
Most of those stocks were already at their peak.
It was logic that actually circulated in the real stock market.
There was a famous story called the "shoeshine boy signal."
Joe Kennedy—father of President John F. Kennedy and a famous Wall Street investor—went to get his shoes shined one day.
But the shoeshine boy started giving him advice on stock investing.
"If even a shoeshine boy is dabbling in stocks, hasn't the market gotten overheated?"
Joe Kennedy sold off every stock he owned, and thanks to that he was able to avoid the Great Depression of 1929 in America.
Thirty years later, that decision had a major influence on his son becoming president.
Information that everyone already knows loses its value as information.
Every investor must be wary of becoming the "shoeshine boy" themselves.
The story I'd just told was in the same vein.
If it was something that reached the ears of beginner investors, it was already over.
This was compressed real-world knowledge you couldn't hear even if you paid for it elsewhere.
"Hey you!"
Apparently there was someone who had a problem with that.
A young woman strode right up without the slightest embarrassment.
"What do you think you're doing in a sacred school!"
"What, is this place a religious cult?"
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
Chestmon Trainer.
A girl with ridiculously huge tits.
But her talk about sacred power might actually have some credibility.
The followers who had been gathered around me.
They quietly backed away and returned to their own seats one by one.
When she's shoving those massive breasts at you……
There wasn't a man alive who wouldn't feel the pressure.
I finally understood the four-character idiom "chest-wind-dang-dang."
"Anyway, class is starting soon so stop it."
"Why should I?"
"You keep saying weird things!"
"What weird things?"
"Th-that…… sex-related talk or whatever."
She was different from that body of hers.
As if she were somehow shy, she trailed off and even averted her eyes.
Looking like that face was made to seduce men……
I had no idea why she was putting on the coy act.
No—maybe the naive one had been me.
"Yeah, yeah!"
"How did he even get into Hankuk Uni……"
"This isn't a place with only seniors, you know? Be a little more careful."
It was turning into agitation.
Not only the female students but even some of the male students showed signs of wanting to go along with it.
"The language was a bit much, yeah."
"If it was just guys it might be different, but there are people who are sensitive about that kind of thing. You know."
Look at this cunning little thing.
That reaction that didn't suit her just now.
It had been to bewitch the men.
A fox spirit at such a young age. A real fox spirit.
"You understand, right? Be more careful from now on."
"Don't wanna."
"……Excuse me?"
"Instead of that, how about you learn something too? You might take one step closer to the dream of a Chestmon Trainer."
But I couldn't back down.
I had to save face in front of the followers, and besides—
Getting along would be good for both of us.
I had a small wish to enjoy a happy campus life with a fresh female university student.
The only S-rank in the department.
Her future dream was supposedly to become a trader.
As an industry senior I wanted to teach her while also securing a moderate amount of personal interest.
"Hmph! I don't need it, okay?"
"Really?"
"I'm already doing well. I've recorded a 20% return just this month, after all."
She seemed to be achieving her own results.
As if to show proof, she tapped away on her phone.
Well, she's not a complete idiot, I guess.
Twenty percent in a month was something worth bragging about.
If you took on risk it was possible even in a single day, but with ordinary investment methods, that is.
It was only natural she wouldn't be interested.
A shame.
I didn't have time to spare either, so I was about to back off when—
"A hundred million? How does a student have a hundred million? Did you do some sugar-daddy thing?"
"I-it's mock investment, okay?!"
"Ah, paper trading."
Of all the things I'd heard since regressing, this was the funniest by far.