The Big Short

Crash.

It isn't only stock prices that fall.

A crash rewires the way investors think.

No wonder everything's tanking.

Corporate value. Cutting-edge technology. Rock-solid earnings. None of it inspires belief anymore.

Watch a stock bleed long enough and that is exactly what happens. You stop hoping for a rebound.

Is there even a point to scooping up bargains?

Tomorrow will be cheaper than today. The day after will be cheaper still. That conviction takes over completely. It starts to feel like you will never make money in stocks again.

That was the current running through the market. Once despair becomes the default setting, nobody bothers entertaining hope.

Looks like shorting is the right call for a while……

It simply was not a climate for buying stocks. And Sora had been turning something over in her mind lately.

Shorts. She was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seriously considering inverse positions. She understood the risk well enough — and still.

Write them down already.

Yeah, leveraged inverse really is the meta right now.

There was no other play. Korea restricted retail short selling, which was exactly why the inverse products kept climbing. That conviction was hardening by the day.

Sora's YouTube channel. Beyond the basic economics lectures, she had started covering the latest market conditions as well.

Professor Doctor Doom said the same thing? Yeah — nobody wants to buy stocks these days, that's for sure.

She learned from the process too. Brainstorming. Just reading the comments taught her how people were thinking. Investor sentiment was dead. The crowd that used to sit around waiting for stocks to rise no matter what had vanished.

It showed up in the trading volume her senior had talked about too. Volume that had hit 15 trillion earlier in the year had been cut in half — and that meant a great deal.

Getting back to previous levels is going to be hard.

It meant the market's upside was capped. And in that environment, foreigners kept selling — hundreds of billions, trillions of won, every single day.

"KOSPI clearing two thousand was never a sure thing to begin with."

"Was it?"

"People who only started investing recently might not know this, but……"

She watched that kind of content on YouTube as well. The Doctor Doom her viewers mentioned was an analyst Sora herself followed regularly.

Right. They used to call it Box-SPI.

Analysts are con artists! That was what her senior would have said. But Doctor Doom was different. He said outright that the market was going to fall. You could actually study the real risks through him.

"Back then, the popular strategy was buying KOSPI at 1,800 and selling at 2,000. Buy the floor, sell the ceiling."

"Oh, I've heard of that! That's why they called it Box-SPI, right?"

One of those lessons. Knowing history matters — her senior had said that too.

I started investing in a bull market, so I just assumed clearing 2,000 was normal.

It really was. For the past five years, KOSPI had bounced between 1,700 and 2,200. The recent rally had simply been too good to be true. The market could easily fall back to those old levels.

"A lot of people think Box-SPI was ancient history, but it was less than two years ago."

"That recent?"

"If anything, the current decline is just the market returning to a normal valuation."

"Wow~ Hearing you put it that way completely changes how I look at this bear market, Professor!"

There were plenty of grounds for that view. Even just what Sora had researched herself was substantial. No matter how she turned it over, current prices still looked high.

I think it goes down to 2,000. At minimum.

The more she listened to Professor Doctor Doom, the firmer that conviction became. After two straight years of gains, the bear market might drag on just as long.

She swallowed hard. The thought gave her chills. But crisis was opportunity — and shorting could make money.

It's something I've always wanted to try at least once, too.

You couldn't just buy stocks forever. She'd heard that real traders mostly worked futures. Shorting was a kind of futures play. It was an ETF, sure, but it still felt like a chance to experience the real thing indirectly.

"Alright~ That was Professor Doctor Doom. Next up, someone who's been red-hot among retail investors lately — please welcome Super Retail trader Sonik-jwa!"

What's that guy doing on here.

A familiar face appeared on screen.

A bear market. A Korean bear market in particular was difficulty set to cosmic maximum.

Variables you can't even imagine are always lurking.

The more rational the investor, the more likely they were to lose money. And there was no guide to warn them.

"Hello! You're the talk of the town — Sonik-jwa himself, correct?"

"That's what they call me in a certain community, yes."

"And these days you're famous on YouTube too~!"

The only thing ordinary investors had to lean on was YouTube, more or less. That was why he had accepted the invitation to appear on 119 Stock Talk.

To raise my profile.

It was necessary. At this point in time, it was one of the most influential finance channels around.

"I watched your videos, you know. Just like you said — this bear market really won't end!"

"Yes."

"Professor Doctor Doom, who was on just before you, and yourself — how do you both manage that kind of foresight?"

And then he would smash it. The best way for an investor to get famous was to shatter the market's existing logic.

Like Michael Burry.

The crowning achievement of his life was nailing the Big Short. He hadn't even made that much money off it, and he never really called anything right again afterward. And yet he was famous. The person who shouts No when everyone else says Yes leaves a deep impression on investors.

"That was then."

"Huh? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠So things are different now?"

"I expect another rally for a while."

Now it was the opposite moment. Every dog and Sora was screaming crash. Doctor Doom was one of the leading crash prophets.

A guy who goes around screaming crash 365 days a year.

He was essentially the opposite position of Yeom Yu-an. On ordinary days he got ignored rather than attention. Then a real crash arrived, and under the banner of "reassessment," he suddenly became famous.

"So you're making the opposite call from Professor Doctor Doom, then?"

"Looks that way."

"Could you walk us through what changed your mind, sir!"

He was not in the same weight class as that man. He was not some brainless short-bug screaming inverse all day.

Still, he is the analyst getting the most attention right now.

He would demolish the man's thesis head-on. For investors exhausted by the crash, it would make for a delightful show.

"Simply put — every dog and his mother is screaming crash."

"Is that really a reason?"

"Yes."

"Come on, sir~! From a macro perspective, or like with Osung Electronics last time — you must have some special reason, right?"

"No."

A bolt from the blue for the crash believers who had their faith locked in.

You have to light a fire this big if you want the aggro to pile in.

The moment the words left his mouth, the chat window erupted into a brawl.

In the recent market, the bear case had become consensus. But the people still underwater were just as numerous. They wanted someone to speak for them. And if that someone had previously called the crash ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠himself — even better.

"I don't need grounds."

"You do need to say something the viewers can accept, though……. Excuse me?"

"People look at a bear market as nothing but a chart. They've never actually lived through one, so they try to reason their way through it. And the rational ones are exactly who lose the most money in a crash. I despise people who half-ass their way into screaming bear more than anyone."

Paradoxically, that was how you earned trust. Whatever that guy says — looking back, he was right.

In the end, what the public wants is a cult leader.

People who actually think for themselves while investing made up less than five percent. That was the reality of the stock market. Think you're different? Live through a real bear market and you find out you're not.

"Professor Doctor Doom's analysis is a little more convincing to me, personally……."

"Is that so?"

"He predicted the dot-com bubble and the Lehman Brothers collapse!"

"The current market is structurally different from those Water Rocket eras."

"Water Rocket?"

Time to shatter some half-baked convictions.