Miracle Cure for Sale

Baekjezen's stock price.

Day after day, it climbed.

Buying pressure kept piling on. And that could only mean one thing.

Pharma stocks get ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠used as pump-and-dump vehicles all the time. Whether a clinical trial succeeds or fails is the difference between heaven and earth. Expectation alone can send a price into a vertical climb — and then the operators cash out their profits in one short, brutal move.

Baekjezen, though, was getting a different kind of evaluation. The stock wasn't spiking in a short burst — it was climbing steadily over a long stretch. That was the kind of pattern you saw with a genuinely good company. Investor conviction hardening was only natural.

Positive headlines kept dropping. As Phase 3 drew closer, the kind of news that functioned as spoilers for the final result started filtering out — almost all of it bullish. Bit by bit, it worked its way into investor expectations and psychology.

It looked like it was going to work. And if it did, it would be a jackpot. The more clearly someone understood that fact, the deeper they fell in. They became fervent disciples of Baekjezen, praying every single day for the announcement of clinical success.

Had those prayers actually reached the heavens? The stock price was climbing as if it had never heard of a ceiling.

Everything looked like a catalyst. No — the fact that Sonik-jwa had bought carried real weight. The rising star of the recent stock scene. A stock worth his capital?

Even the investors who'd been sitting on the sidelines started taking the bait. Across the stock communities, it became the consensus overnight.

Consensus. It rewired how investors thought. The way a game you'd never cared about suddenly looks fun the moment everyone else is playing it. Herd psychology spread on its own — without anyone realizing they'd been swept up in it.

No matter how I look at it, this is way too overheated…

Sora had been tracking that shift in investor behavior for the past two weeks. She'd been watching Baekjezen. Not because her senior had told her to — but because of a hint.

You have to think about where that thin liquidity is going to get funneled.

Biotech. And among biotech names, which one would command the market's full attention?

Fair enough, but…

Her usual self would never have bought it. A shady company with no clear substance. But the experience at Kangwon Land had put steel in her spine. She'd bought in with a one-shot, let's-see-what-happens mindset — and then:

It was delivering an absurd return. She'd hesitated, gotten in late — and still printed nearly fifty percent.

So this is why people keep going on about pharma stocks…

A momentum name. Every so often a stock erupted with real force, and among those, this one's climb was in a class of its own. By the time she'd bought in, it had already run fivefold. From there it had the gall to rip another fifty percent.

Maybe I should hold a little longer…?

The market mood was still good. Just like the community reactions a moment ago, people were starting to lose their minds. A real tenbagger. Up to fifty thousand won — maybe, if the new drug succeeded, even beyond that. The thought had just begun to form when—

Sell order filled!

A scene from Kangwon Land flashed through her mind. Those people hadn't lost money from the start either.

Once you've held real money in your hands…

You lose your normal sense of scale. Just a little more. Just a little more. A single bet starts moving hundreds of thousands, millions of won. Just like this biotech stock. The new drug hadn't even succeeded, and pure expectation was punching a hole through the sky.

She ignored the market's negative signals. No matter how you looked at it, this was not a normal company.

How many corporate bonds are they even issuing? And the executives have zero shame.

Corporate bonds — debt a company raised against its own credit. They'd already used that tool thirty times. The executives were shady too. They were dumping their own shares. If it were truly a good company, would they have any reason to sell?

The stock climbed right over every red flag. On Phase 3 expectations alone, there was no telling how high it would go. Just existing inside that mania was psychologically exhausting. And from that cauldron of madness, Sora chose to walk out.

The reasons a stock goes up. There were more kinds than you could count — including some that were genuinely absurd.

Lately, Baekjezen's price kept rising. And the reason had nothing to do with what the public was shouting about.

By the time the information was public, everyone who was going to buy already had. The ones still clinging on were just late-arriving retail.

And yet.

It kept rising. Because the information was actually correct? No. The real reason had nothing to do with that at all.

Because they wanted to break fifty thousand won.

A beginner investor would find that ridiculous. But that kind of thing existed. It was one of the methods day traders actually used. It worked on investor psychology — the same logic as a home-shopping channel knocking a hundred or two hundred won off a "special price of 49,900."

There was a real ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mechanical effect too — the change in tick size. It goaded retail buying pressure. The higher the price went, the more people wanted to buy. The operators used psychology to paint the bigger picture.

Not operators — institutions, actually.

"Plays" weren't exclusive to Illicit Stock Manipulators. Domestic and foreign institutions ran their own games on this market. High-valuation names like this were a textbook example. The price was so elevated that, paradoxically, the move became possible. The bubble was already absurdly thick — and while retail flinched in fear, the foreigners vacuumed up the float.