Powell

Sora's investment.

Not much had changed.

Just one thing.

She'd started streaming.

"No, seriously, why does it drop the second I buy?!"

It was harder than she'd expected.

All she'd done was turn on a stream.

I feel like I'm being chased psychologically…

The pressure to look competent — to put on a good show — made her rush her buys.

"Thanks for the thousand. Yeah, that's one way to do it."

The market still hadn't entered a real recovery.

The KOSPI had lifted its head a little lately, but—

You could hardly call it a bull market.

It wasn't tracking corporate earnings or any particular positive catalyst.

There's no real basis for buying.

A technical rebound.

That was the only way to describe a market this chaotic.

Conventional analysis didn't work. Predicting the next move was nearly impossible.

"Hwaryong Technology?"

The value investing she wanted to do — this wasn't a market where that worked.

Ugh, junk stocks.

Even so, there were ways to make money. Opportunity was always rolling around somewhere in the market.

The stock a viewer had recommended — Sora had heard of it before.

On the community boards, that is.

It was so loud you practically couldn't avoid knowing about it.

It wasn't unusual. Theme stocks that sucked up all the market's speculative appetite cropped up all the time.

Sora occasionally joined in herself.

This case was the exception — and that was the problem.

A treasure-ship theme stock.

At first she'd thought she'd misheard. They claimed they were actually salvaging a treasure ship. That alone was absurd.

What was truly beyond belief was how the company was conducting itself.

The more she researched, the less she could buy it. There was no way to trust this company.

"Ah… yeah, there are people like that. I'm just not good at day trading."

And yet the stock price rose. That was the Korean market for you.

Sora wasn't naive enough not to know it was pure gambling — put money down, take money out. She couldn't fall into the trap of relative deprivation. She'd moved past the stage of being swayed by that kind of thing.

I have a trading method that suits me.

She had to keep a cool head. Get greedy and she'd end up impulse-trading. Opportunity would come eventually. That was why she streamed stocks every single day.

"Hey, I told you not to drop big donations during market hours!"

Her camgirl income had grown larger. The viewers clearly preferred it that way. It felt wrong to take the money and refuse.

Sora had no choice but to dance.

She'd danced so much she'd developed original choreography. Pride in her dancing skills had started to take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠root.

Th-this isn't right.

Lately even she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't tell whether this was a camgirl stream or a stock broadcast. She'd given in to one request after another, and it had come to this. Demands for reactions kept piling up.

"Haa… haa… Happy now? What? You want me to call you oppa?"

They wanted every weird thing imaginable.

Camgirl. She'd only ever heard the word — she never thought it would become her reality.

Maybe I should just pull a big seed pile while I'm at it.

The income was undeniably enormous. She was making in a single day what you'd call a jackpot in stocks. The viewers weren't entirely wrong. Going full-time camgirl would probably earn even more, but—

"No! I'm truly grateful that you watch and donate, but at this rate I won't even know if I'm a camgirl or a trader."

She would lose her identity as an investor. For the sake of her future dreams, she would give up short-term revenue.

A disappointment for the big spenders. A long-cultivated project had ended in failure. Her will was simply too firm. Some people wouldn't do it even for a million gold.

Good! From now on I focus only on stocks.

Maybe she'd let herself get distracted. Once donations started bringing in money, her stock ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trading ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had gotten sloppy. Her mindset itself had gone soft. The reason her trades hadn't been working was that she hadn't been desperate enough.

"I'm closing donations too. Not even after market close. I'm going to eat whatever I want and stop managing my figure, so don't get your hopes up."

It was time to decide. She felt a little sorry for the viewers, but no matter how she looked at it, this was right.

Why the hell am I a camgirl, fuck!

It had started with those weird donations early on. Ever since, the viewers had been thoroughly mistaken. She needed to correct that — to make clear that she was not someone who did suggestive streams.

"With the strong-dollar phenomenon easing recently, foreign investors chasing FX gains seem to be coming in as net buyers. I'm planning a conservative approach — looking to buy the dips when corrections come in."

Of course Dream Girls fans still came by. If she never danced at all, they might feel let down.

Still, for a while…

She would devote herself entirely to stocks. Even if she did reactions again, she wouldn't do them like a camgirl.

She was a trader, after all.

It felt pretentious to say it herself, but it was a noble and solitary profession — a hundred and eighty degrees from camgirling.

She had tried to protect her pride as an investor.

Huh?

A historic bear market arrived.

Washington, D.C.

An event that occurred eight times a year. Its importance was so high it could shake the global economy — and yet under ordinary circumstances, nobody paid it any attention.

But every so often, it focused the eyes of the entire world on a single point.

That was the Federal Open Market Committee — the FOMC.

The moment Chairman Jerome Powell offered his greeting—

"Sell! Sell! Dump everything!"

"Sell down to your underwear!"

Wall Street.

Chaos was inevitable. The market's single greatest catastrophe had just detonated.

Huh?

Rookie trader Sam Kimmins couldn't hide his confusion. Powell hadn't even said anything yet.

The Nasdaq had plunged nearly one percent out of nowhere. A major disaster that unfolded in a single second.

"Why is it dropping?"

"He said hello!"

"So? What does that mean?"

"Oh my god…"

He didn't grasp the gravity of it. There was no time to indulge a clueless rookie's questions.

He has no idea how terrifying the FOMC is.

The situation was that urgent. Not a single syllable of Powell's ongoing speech could be allowed to slip past.

Depending on which words he chose, the market rode waves. Even the future direction of the market could be decided.

That was this world. Traders analyzed Powell's remarks in real time and priced them into equities instantly.

"Isn't that what he said last time?"

"Heh, heheh."

"Fuck it, going long~."

It wasn't always the correct direction. Some people interpreted the intent of his remarks differently.

Hopium circuits. Investors in a Nasdaq that had only risen for the past decade had brains wired exclusively toward the upside.

The reporters were relentless. Their job was to extract the sentences and words they wanted from Powell's mouth — because those could become the basis for a market rally.

Just like the last FOMC, everyone had assumed things would somehow work out. But then—

He used uncommonly direct language.

Given the nature of the office and the market impact, indirect phrasing was the norm. But Powell was frustrated. When markets rose, inflation became harder to contain. Trump kept offering unsolicited advice on Twitter. No matter how hawkish the remarks, they cooled off as fast as water thrown on hot coals.

He would make sure that kind of misunderstanding never happened again.

He handed down a death sentence to the global financial markets.