Money Copy
A nation never before experienced.
The first female president’s inaugural address had become reality, regardless of her intentions.
When historical events keep slamming into you one after another…
The Korea-Japan trade war. The COVID crisis. The Russia-Ukraine war. Stagflation. And everything else in between.
It was the chaotic finale of an age where the old common sense no longer worked. In the long, long history of the Republic of Korea, it had been the most brutal stretch of all. The sheer velocity felt like the previous twenty years had been compressed and force-fed into a single decade; no one could keep their footing.
Especially the investors.
It left trauma in countless people. Riding a roller coaster at four-times speed would feel about the same.
That was the era of my investment debut. Ironically, it was precisely because I had lived through that absurd period that the present me existed at all.
Of course it wasn’t the president’s fault. The times themselves were so eventful that whoever sat in the Blue House would have found it hard to avoid a few gusts of wind.
Anyway.
The worst of eras. I had thought the gods had sent me back to milk easy money; instead they pulled a stunt on the level of shipping me off to the military a second time. One small mercy: I had already finished my service. Rotting two years in the army might actually have been preferable.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah~~~!!!
Innocent citizens who had no idea how chaotic the future would become were showering the president’s speech with praise. I wanted to join in, but the situation didn’t allow it. I already knew everything.
What do I do, what do I do.
My hands and feet were trembling. Without realizing it I was gnawing my thumbnail. That was how critical the crisis felt. Yet any situation can be used if you know how. Flip the word “crisis” around and you get…
…sisirc. Means nothing.
I was fucked. No amount of thrashing would turn a crisis into something that wasn’t a crisis. Still I wrung my brain dry, hunting for anything useful inside the president’s words.
Right. People first!
One point I could actually agree with. It was the lifelong motto of a president who had fought for human rights. At the time I hadn’t understood it. Why? Because nothing outranks money. Or so I had thought. Only after growing older did I finally grasp the deep meaning behind her words and bow in admiration.
If I’m going to hire people for my company, I have to raise them myself.
Making a lot of money is important. But no matter how much you have, if management is sloppy it leaks away. Even the famous Japanese investor BNF could only run 160 billion won by himself; beyond that he had to shift into real estate and other safe assets because the size became unmanageable. I was better than him, yet even I had limits. Half-baked employees only made me anxious. I handled almost everything alone. Looking back, getting screwed by that goddamn bitch had been inevitable. Abnormal signals appear in the market; detecting them and responding properly requires more bodies than one man possesses. I needed someone who could stand in for me—someone even a paranoid bastard like me could trust and hand the reins to.
KakaoTalk pinged.
The stage for that very search had been prepared by a coincidence that wasn’t coincidence at all: my alma mater.
Hankuk University, huh. Right.
One of Korea’s top schools, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with SKY and even surpassing them in certain fields. Still, on the world stage it was merely average—one of the reasons I had dropped out.
Those cheap bastards strutted around with their necks stiff just because they went to a prestigious school. That alone had been reason enough to quit.
Still, I might dig up a few usable specimens.
It was a top university in its own right. Not every single one of them would be full of hot air. University was the best place to build connections.
An event worth attending. The freshman welcome party was happening right on schedule. I would get a clear look at the most unhinged people in our department.
Worth showing up, at least.
At minimum I could build a list of people to filter out. And there was one more reason it was worth going.
If the water’s good, I have to go.
As a senior it was only proper to bestow a little wisdom on the baby chicks—daytime, nighttime, drinking table, whatever. I was in the mood. A successful (past tense) Wall Street investor would grace them with his presence.
There was just one tiny problem.
I was a little short on cash. In this era I was a freshly discharged soldier living on monthly rent—a dirt-poor young man.
If you don’t have money, just copy it, right?
Literally trivial. Marie Antoinette’s absurd logic actually worked in the modern age. And it was eight in the morning—the hour when humans feel the least guilt and the most greed.
─ Welcome to the Gambler’s Canyon!
The only form of gambling the state permitted. Depending on skill, KOSPI could multiply your money several times over in a single day. I fired up the HTS and finished the setup. All that remained was to wait for 09:00.
Open the casino doors!
After so long, the blood was boiling again. Sitting at a desk barking orders had kept me from enjoying this delicious form of gambling.
No… investing.
Anyway, the job was clear: bet on stocks that would rise and take the money. That was stocks. Obviously it wasn’t easy. You had to analyze whether a company was actually good.
What were the good stocks around this time again?
Memories more than twenty years old. Nothing would still be sitting in my head. Even if something did surface, today itself was unknowable. A company that would go tenfold or twentyfold in the distant future could still drop today. That was why stocks were hard.
What should I buy so people will say I bought well?
Current time: 8:55. Even if I had once been the CEO of a hot fund, five minutes was not enough to figure anything out.
─ Nasdaq closes −2.2%…… Powell: “I will definitely kill the Nasdaq”
─ Oseong Electronics, SQ Technology: reasons the stock “keeps running” are gaining weight
─ [Featured Stock] Ssangbur al Chairman: “I will participate in the Ssangducha acquisition battle”
─ [Econo Briefing] Five companies join Ssangducha acquisition battle, and more
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The first thing you always check is the previous day’s U.S. and European markets. Judging by the tone of the headlines…
Powell ran his mouth again.
That crazy old man. He got a kick out of squeezing and releasing the dollar whenever he felt like it, so he spat out nonsense whenever he was bored. Old-man special: he sulks easily. If you don’t react, you never know what he’ll do next, so you have to pretend to panic and drop the market for him. The aftershock reaches KOSPI on the other side of the planet. When Nasdaq falls, the domestic market has no choice but to shake. Finding something that might rise today just got harder.
But even if the sky collapses there is always a hole to crawl through.
Ssangducha acquisition battle, huh…
When one company eats another, the stock usually rockets—not the teasing 1–2 percent kind, but thirty percent jumps. The risk is just as large. The price is already priced in, and if the deal falls through it can freefall forever.
Ssangbur al? Never even heard of this trash stock.
If it were a good company you could still average down and wait for the rescue team. But a so-called trash stock—an unknown company—could turn into toilet paper without anyone batting an eye, never mind recovering principal.
Gulp.
My first trade after regression and I had already hit a wall. A rational investor would never touch it. Even the legendary value investor Warren Buffett had warned: a wise investor does not speculate—he invests. That was the philosophy that made him. He bought undervalued companies and waited for distant future profits.
I don’t have time for that coward shit.
I couldn’t wait patiently. I needed to take money from the casino right now. No—invest. Warren Buffett was human too; even he made exceptions to his own rules.
Even people who never touch stocks have heard that one at least once. Surprisingly few understand its real meaning.
Something worth chewing on once.
But there was no need to overthink it. It was the same as when you drop food. Like the three-second rule.
Buy order has been executed!
Stocks only needed to come out within nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.