Deep-Rooted Evil
Deep-rooted evil.
Trader.
That was why Sora traded stocks — and what she aimed to become.
Start over with a clean slate. One more time.
She had been underwater for a while. The market had fallen faster than anyone expected.
Osung Electronics especially. Some absolute bastard had told her to buy, and she had gotten wrecked.
Fortunately, it had bounced. She had even scraped a little profit on the rebound.
Overall she was still down because of the other names, but —
Considering how hard the market sold off, this is a decent hold.
Not bad enough to beat herself up over. And it wasn't pure loss, either.
Tuition. That was what people called money lost in the stock market.
There really are things you only learn by getting burned.
If she hadn't been stuck underwater, she would never have sat down and asked herself how she should have traded it. Something came out of that process.
Next time, she would stay calmer.
Click. Tap.
That moment had arrived. Right now she was sitting on one hundred percent cash.
A bear market is a fear market.
Prices fell below fair value. Stocks lay scattered at absurdly cheap levels. She still remembered how she had stamped her feet through the last selloff — if only I had bought at those prices, I would have made a killing.
Buy order filled!
Back then she had been trapped and couldn't do a thing. This time she would settle that score.
But stay calm.
She scaled in. No rushing. She waited for even cheaper prices to show up. The last bear market had taught her that once fear soaked into a chart, prices could fall further than she thought possible.
But enterprise value doesn't change. Eventually it comes back — just like the last rebound.
Use that, and a bear market could become an opportunity.
She swallowed hard. That was her trading plan: safer, more certain profits.
Though it looks like my senior dug up another weird one again.
He had told her to buy Osung Electronics — then bought Osung Biologics himself. And it had ripped higher. Unfortunately she couldn't ride it. She simply couldn't see the thesis. She understood the logic, but buying a company trading at a PER of 150 in the middle of bear-market terror had been impossible.
Now the multiple was past 200. The stock had blown through recovery and was sprinting toward pure mania.
That guy is a lunatic, so he buys this stuff. I'll trade my own way.
With 09Lady, at least the market had been strong. This was a bear market. Cheap stocks were everywhere. No reason to gamble.
Buy order filled!
Sora traded by her own rules — and those rules were clearly right. Profits came easy. Buy something cheaper than its enterprise value, sell into the bounce. That was it.
Heh. Heheh.
Easier than she expected? No — of course it was doable. Prices were cheap. Ridiculously cheap. Bargain hunters were bound to show up.
Sell order filled!
Buy the fear, sell the bounce. When everyone else said no —
Isn't saying yes what makes you an investor?
She felt proud. The market was completely terrified. That was her opportunity. She was making money in a bear market.
In a bull market, everyone made money. That felt good too. In a bear market, more people lost than won — and she was winning.
Heheh. Didn't I tell you to sell?
The satisfaction was double. She felt like someone special. A trader. Maybe she had edged a little closer to the dream.
Buy order filled!
Prices had come down again. The community mood was bleak.
If I buy again here…
Another bounce would come. Don't get greedy — take the short scalp and get out. She thought she had finally learned what "buy the fear" meant through this selloff.
Institutions are massacring the tape!
Foreigners are going berserk too!
?????
Tuition in the stock market was expensive.
A bear market.
About the only thing a retail investor could pull off was a cheerful little rebellion.
Can't be helped.
He had landed one clean hit on the institutions. That didn't mean he could keep beating them for free. It was a structural problem. The system was built so that retail eventually lost money.
Investors had every right to lose their minds. The community atmosphere was gutted.
This is a funeral home, not a festival, holy shit
In an ordinary bear market, some people lost and some people made money. Korea's bear markets were different. They were engineered so that retail had to lose.
Because they have a guaranteed win condition.
Institutions could short. Drive the price down by any means necessary, and they made money.
Daily News — Capital Research: "Domestic economy at peak… equity market entering a downturn"
Korea Times — "KOSPI recovery looks difficult"… brokerages slash index targets en masse
Fact News — Korean equities: foreigners and institutions sell into U.S.–China trade war uncertainty
No method off-limits. Simple, and certain.
Just murder investment sentiment.
Stocks rose because someone was buying. No buyers? Prices never got a fair valuation. Institutions hunted that on purpose.
"Confidentiality Guaranteed" — ₩100M minimum
100% domestic network available
No matter how rationally you responded, it didn't matter. They slow-cooked you over months. They shook the market up and down. The press only ran bad news. Kill the desire to trade at all, and —
People start leaving the market one by one.
First they stacked the shorts. Then they roasted retail for months until people surrendered on their own. Even if you personally refused to quit, it didn't matter. Once enough other ants left, prices simply could not rise.
That was the secret behind Korea's 97.5% short-selling win rate. By the time you realized it and started regretting, it was too late.
Spilled water. Plenty of retail was already trapped by the reverse of that playbook.
Analysts work that hard on the sales pitch, dump the inventory, stack a mountain of shorts — and Korean shorts have no mandatory buy-in deadline. Stretch it long enough and the math says you win.
The tilted playing field was worse than retail could even imagine.
What, you think a securities employee is gonna tell you "don't trade stocks, you'll just get wrecked by institutions and foreigners and you'll be lucky to break even, so hurry the fuck up and put it in a bank savings account and live as a slave until you die"? You think he's gonna drop that factual truth bomb?
It was already underway. Right now people could still meme and clown around. A few months from now, even the death rattles would go quiet.
The Korean market really is entertaining.
This kind of thing couldn't happen in U.S. equities. Every participant was a potential enemy of every other. The last Osung Biologics episode — and incidents just like it — erupted as naturally as breathing. A real war zone.
Korea was an illegal casino cosplaying as a battlefield. The house always won in the end.
"I'm not an idiot, why would I do that? Your dad just put money into deposits and savings every month."
"I love you, Dad!"
He knew all of that, which was why he was sitting this one out. After a big win, you were supposed to rest.
In a bear market, mental management matters too.
Bull markets moved on fundamentals. Bear markets priced everything on pure psychology. Rational buying was several times harder. You couldn't chain yourself to short-term P&L.
This absolute idiot girl.
Sora, same as always.