Force Versus Force

Force versus force.

Institutional investment.

There was no shortage of things standing in the way of attempting it.

It's still a bit early for a full-scale play.

The capital was different. The manpower was different. The units of scale weren't even in the same league.

Above all, the gap in information was decisive.

Real-time tracking of trading flows. Micro-level sleight of hand that moved beneath the surface. Things no individual could ever pull off.

But imitation? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That much was possible.

If you understood how institutions traded, Koogle Trends was a simple yet rock-solid indicator.

"With something like this?"

"It's just… something you can look up with a search…"

"Exactly!"

"Seems pretty half-assed."

"Not really."

"?"

It was data that actual institutions referenced too. Or rather, it was fairer to say that was how things had turned out.

During the last presidential election.

Not Korea's — the American one.

A result that flipped every public expectation about five hundred and forty degrees had come crashing down.

Trump had won.

The news, the polls — every single one of them had predicted a Clinton victory.

"Everything except Koogle Trends, that is."

"Ooooh!"

"The reliability's higher than I expected."

"Well, nobody doesn't use Koogle these days."

The value of big data had been recognized. Attempts to fold it into investing were already underway.

Of course, this only works because it's a niche sector.

In sectors where money moved by the trillions — semiconductors, raw materials — the methods were far more granular and specialized.

But entertainment stocks were small money. Not important enough for institutions to grind themselves into the dirt over.

At best, institutions leaned on big data and trading volume ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— just enough to pinpoint the moment investor attention was flooding in.

And while floating a few tabloid headlines…

They dumped their positions onto the retail crowd.

For the past year, they would have been quietly accumulating, inflating the bubble as they went.

"Are we really going in right now?"

"Looking at the chart, this is way too high…"

"One hundred percent chance we get washed out."

The club members had every right to be nervous. It was a pattern you could watch play out a dozen times a year in the Korean stock market.

Especially once the short interest piles up.

Predicting the bottom became impossible. You got a firsthand lesson in what it meant for there to be a basement under the floor.

That was why retail traders carried PTSD about short selling.

But there was a finer process underneath it all.

"Do you know how institutions actually short?"

"Well, because they expect it to drop."

"If they just dump everything, they can move the price however they want!"

"Almost no institution invests that aggressively."

From a retail investor's perspective, institutions were godlike entities. No matter how much good news piled up, if they wanted a stock down, it went down.

Doing whatever the hell they pleased.

When they were dumping thousands, tens of thousands of shares at a time, a few hundred ants latching on weren't going to change a thing. They moved prices however they wanted.

That kind of behavior carried enormous risk. What if some unexpected variable sent the stock the other way?

"Well, then they'd take a loss, right?"

"Isn't that just how investing works?"

"That's an investor's way of thinking."

"?"

Institutional investors were traders employed by the institution. Or other investment professionals.

In practice, they were basically office workers.

Not basically — they were office workers. They drew a salary and moved the institution's money on its behalf.

"These are people whose daily goal is just to survive."

"Really?"

"I heard if you make a lot, you get incentives…"

"That doesn't apply to traders in Korea."

Of course incentives existed. Pull in big returns and a proportional performance bonus got paid out.

But that was usually a Wall Street story.

Just kill yourself and call it a day~!

Traders who bet their lives on every trade were easy enough to find. The rare few who survived became the successful Wall Street figures you encountered through books, TV, and YouTube.

And even people that capable —

— still wouldn't touch short selling lightly. The claim that losses could run to infinity wasn't pure scare-mongering.

"Isn't Korean short selling kind of special, though?"

"Naked shorts, unlimited duration!"

"Right."

"So the risk should be lower."

"They can't even manage that."

Korean institutions were extraordinarily passive. They aimed for thoroughly stable, conservative investing.

That temperament showed even in their short selling. When they shorted one stock, they bought another in the same sector.

"Ah — so that's why!"

"3M is getting wrecked while Pharmacy is holding up."

"Isn't that an insanely annoying way to do it?"

"It's safer that way."

They were putting on a hedge. Lower expected returns in exchange for locking in safety.

Fucking cowards, the lot of them.

That was how Korean institutions invested. And if you knew the method, you could turn it around and use it against them.

That was exactly what I intended to do.

But it required one prerequisite.

"Is Min-seo really that much of a bitch?"

"Holy shit, she never looked like that on the broadcast."

"I almost became a fan."

"And Sora's getting iced out?"

Inside information.

Sora — now a full-fledged member of Dream Girls — was feeding us the on-the-ground intel.

This is the whole reason you do insider trading.

Dream Girls was a hit. That anticipation was already priced into the stock through pre-reflection, no question.

"Ugh. For someone with an ass that huge…"

But there were parts that hadn't been priced in yet.

Because the contestants would eventually choose their agencies.

A pure winner-take-all structure.

Dream Girls was a survival show. As the broadcast progressed, winners and losers split apart — and so did the agencies. The ones that locked down contracts and the ones that didn't would see a real gap open up.

"And we're supposed to trust the outcast on this?"

You could know it in advance. Because choosing an agency ultimately came down to the contestant's own preference.

Which meant the tabloid leaks could start flying.

Jang Min-seo was drawing the most attention among ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the regular contestants. The judges' scores were strong, the community reaction was strong. She looked likely to survive all the way to the end.

Whichever agency signed her would reap the benefits.

"What about you, then?"

"You need to actively manufacture the rumor if we're going to cash in."

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Come on, Sora, just grit your teeth and do it once."

How much that information was actually worth — the ordinary contestants had no idea, and they were blabbing freely. Including the future superstar currently setting the internet on fire.

She herself didn't seem interested.

Either way.

It was usable information.

Yuseong Investment Securities.

Department Head Lee Tae-hak had a headache of a problem on his hands lately.

If I can just offload this cleanly…

The past year of accumulation had gone smoothly. With public attention peaking right now, this was the ideal window to sell.

It just wasn't that easy. Dump too openly and the retail crowd would catch the scent.

"We've disposed of roughly ten percent!"

"At this pace, we should complete the full sell-off by the end of next month."

"I suppose so…"

Shake it up and down, dissolve the position slowly. Pair it with short selling and it became doable.

The problem is where to put the long-short.

They called it a long-short strategy: buy one stock in a sector, sell another.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have given it much thought. The end goal was to sell everything eventually.

But some sectors were special. A contract or two could send a stock surging tens of percent overnight.

Entertainment stocks were one of them. Landing a deal with a major celebrity was massive good news.

Don't tell me there's insider buying going on.

Dream Girls Season 3 was performing beyond expectations. It made sense that buying pressure was concentrating lately. A stock that had risen on pure anticipation sometimes saw that anticipation become reality.

Lee Tae-hak had lived through similar experiences more times than he could count.

Gulp.

The one that still gave him chills was Osung Electronics. It had tripled in a year, so he'd shorted it moderately — figuring at least he wouldn't take a real loss. Looking at it now, sitting as the number-one market cap on the KOSPI, his spine still ran cold.

"3M isn't getting suppressed the way I expected."

"Looking at how every support level is getting propped up, there's definitely a low-price buying force in there…"

"Should we concentrate the short selling a bit harder?"

Back then, too, something had felt off, so he'd covered the short. The reason he'd survived more than twenty years in this business —

Yeah. Safe is best.

Expected returns could take a small haircut. What mattered was never triggering a one-in-a-million disaster.

A persistent buy wall. It was possible that an insider in that stock had already gotten wind of good news.

"Go long 3M. Flip Pharmacy and JPG to short."

"Huh? That means we'd be covering everything we've shorted so far."

"You planning to take responsibility for this?"

"…No, sir."

There was no reason to shoulder that kind of risk. Better to lock in reliable profits from the safer names.

And that judgment proved correct.

Not long after, he received news that made him wipe the cold sweat from his chest. Thank god he'd covered when he did.

The hottest contract issue on Dream Girls — Jang Min-seo. An insider who'd known in advance had been buying the stock.

Thanks to his quick call, he hadn't taken a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠loss.

Lee Tae-hak congratulated himself and headed into work as usual. But—