I'll Stake Your Life

Short selling.

A vicious investment technique that has reduced countless retail investors to tears.

In theory, it's necessary. That much is true.

You borrow a stock currently worth ten thousand won. You buy it back later at a lower price and return it. In short, a system that makes you money when the price falls.

So why does short selling exist?

It can prevent speculative bubbles where stock prices climb too high. That's the official line, anyway — that it exists for the health of the market.

But on the KOSPI, it works a little differently.

There's a reason I call it a casino.

You have to factor all of that in when you pick your entry point.

If you invest in the KOSPI, this is mandatory knowledge — how short selling actually moves the market.

The stock I was trading: Donghae Steel. Among steel equities, it had the most active volume. The communities were talking about it in real time, too.

Walls exist to be broken.

You have to think differently from the retail crowd. Not the prey's mindset — the predator's.

If I were an institution?

"Shatter their formation!"

I'd crush it in one blow, like a Demacian general. Force the hesitant retail investors into a panic sell.

Terrifying.

Surely it won't fall further from here?

They'd been shaking the steel stocks for a while now, etching fear deep into retail psychology. Hands were already hovering over the sell button. Desperate to salvage whatever they could, they dumped shares at market.

And so, by the law of inertia—

The 100,000-share buy wall. The moment that massive dam broke, volume came pouring through like a floodgate bursting open.

The notification fired at the same instant. I'd placed my order three ticks below the sell wall. My shares filled by a razor-thin margin.

And just like that, it climbed again. As if the drop had never happened.

Wait — why? I took a loss on this.

Break-even psychology kicked in. People started buying. The human heart is a strange thing. Even the ones who'd been thinking about cutting losses got tempted. Their entire outlook flipped with every tick of the price. And just like that, they took the bait — without the faintest clue what the institutions were actually thinking.

A sharp rebound after overselling. Using that rebound to short — that was the real objective.

Shorts can only be placed one tick above the market price, after all.

That's called the uptick rule. You need buying pressure for retail to absorb the shorted shares.

Dumping a hundred thousand shares in one go? That was to lock in profits on existing inventory and open the short.

The institutions' goal was to drive the price even lower. That was the only way the short paid out bigger.

Feels like another dump-and-pump window is coming.

Same method as just now. My read was they'd repeat it at least two or three more times. But the drop had already been excessive.

It had fallen more than twice as hard as its peer stocks. Shareholders who'd been trading Posk and Mirae Steel were watching.

Donghae Steel was looking tasty. Didn't seem like it would drop any further. Retail came flooding in.

But if you look at the daily chart—

The story changed a little. Over the past month, Donghae Steel had been the steepest climber of the bunch. In other words, it was inflated. Retail was swarming all over it, which made it perfect for shorting.

They nudged it up a little, and the buy walls thickened. Then they shattered retail's dreams and hopes in a single crash. Even the thick buy wall at 12,000 won got punched through — like smashing a stack of roof tiles one after another.

Everyone has a plan. Until they get punched in the face.

This is real terror.

These weren't institutions that had started shorting yesterday. Nobody knew how to scare retail better than they did.

I was in a similar position. Back in my prime, I'd shorted plenty on the domestic market myself.

……Huh?

Even so, I couldn't call it with a hundred percent accuracy. That was just the nature of the market.

It dropped a little further. And it wasn't only retail trembling in fear. The institutions started dumping their own inventory too.

−0.5%

−1.2%

−1.7%

Deeper and deeper. From my perspective, a deeply regrettable situation.

Well, shit. Not my life, of course.

Leverage. More precisely, margin trading — putting up seventy percent of a stock's market value as collateral to buy shares. The potential gains are huge, and so are the losses. One bad call and you could genuinely start running short on liver, kidneys, whatever.

Thankfully, even just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠working the rooms would be enough to pay it back.

I could personally guarantee that particular talent. But if I lost it all like this, I genuinely wouldn't be able to face my junior. A kind senior, fretting over a junior's future.

I'd prepared one contingency for exactly this possibility.

Unsettled credit. The brokerage lends retail investors money. In a situation like this, where seed capital is thin, it comes in handy. Margin gives you 2.5x. Unsettled credit gives you 3.5x. Stack them together and you get margin-plus-unsettled — the ultimate last-train technique of retail investors whose lives are already on the rails.

"Gazua~!"

For the record, it wasn't my life on the line.

Fssssssshhh—!

A shower. Warm water for the first time in a week was more than enough to clear her head.

……

But that wasn't necessarily a good thing. A mind that had been frozen solid started turning again. A loss totaling 2.7 million won. No — it might still be growing, even now.

Please.

She'd been preparing for today's trades. A sudden turn of events had made that impossible. Current time: 9:30 a.m. She'd already been in the bathroom for over thirty minutes.

I need to wash up and get out of here.

That had been the plan. Part of her wanted to take a long, leisurely bath, but there was no room for that. Every minute, every second was a luxury. She needed to recover even a fraction of her seed capital. She knew she ought to get outside right now, and yet—

Fssssssshhh—!

Her feet wouldn't move. Head and body were operating on separate circuits. No matter what orders she issued, she stood motionless in front of the shower hose. Pretending she was still washing had become impossible. The shower had finished a long time ago.

Maybe I should just die.

Forgetting everything and standing under the water might actually be happier. And for good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reason.

Thud!

If that absolute psycho starts spreading rumors—

Going to school would become pure hell. Without realizing it, strength flooded into her right hand. She only registered it after she'd already punched the bathroom wall. Just imagining it was enough to make her blood boil.

Grit.

But it was the truth. That she'd failed her investment. That she'd lost the bet with that person. All of it.

Why did I, why did I……

She'd showered so long that water had pooled on the floor. She kicked at it, splash-splash, working out the stress. It didn't change reality. The longer the hot water ran over her, the more other thoughts surfaced.

"You're a gambler and you know it! You're just playing stock-market Go-Stop. What's the difference?"

Her deranged senior's words. Looking back now, they'd been a bit much — but not wrong. Watching stock ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠prices thrash around with a will of their own, it was hard not to think that way. Was this really about evaluating a company's value?

This stock was definitely supposed to go up.

She bit her cracked lip and tasted the metallic tang of blood. But something else took priority over that. What on earth were the institutions thinking when they bought and sold? Didn't trading like that just lose money? It made no sense by any ordinary logic. Buying high and selling low. Was there some secret she simply didn't know?

Drip. Drip-drip.

Water ran from her wet hair down her cheeks. The traders she aspired to be — the ones living her dream — she couldn't understand what they were doing. The person she was right now simply couldn't know. Would the day ever come when she could?

……

She had no confidence. Live trading. Putting real money on the line had taught her how hard it was to chase the movement of numbers. Every time her seed capital got carved away, it felt like someone was cutting out her heart. And this was over a mere few million won?

Sora knew how much capital the traders at securities firms actually handled. It was her target career, so of course she'd researched it. She'd believed that someday she could be one of them, too.

Creak.

Even thinking was a luxury. She shut off the hot water valve. Washing her body had at least restored a measure of calm. She needed to clean up the account now, even at this late hour. If it had gone up, she'd cut her losses and come back better prepared next time. Her dream of becoming a trader wasn't something she'd taken so lightly that one failure would make her quit.

But if it had gone down?

Please.

She pressed a towel into her long hair, wringing out the water. She pulled on a shower robe and opened the bathroom door. Turning the handle alone was enough to make Sora's heart hesitate. She didn't have the courage to look at an account in the red.

Tap. Tap.

So she tapped her phone instead. She could check her account from her phone as well as her computer.

Ah……

Losses, just as expected. The stock price was down. By a significant margin, no less. She squeezed her eyes shut. Leaning against the wall for support, she forced herself to open them again.

Okay. Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now, I can still— huh?

But the shower had steadied her nerves. She forcibly crushed down the urge to cry. An investment failure. She'd been ready to accept her own incompetence and her reality, and stop the bleeding before it got worse—

Eight hundred…… no — 48 million won?!

Something about the account was very wrong.