The Undefeated Myth
Sonik-jwa.
.
.
.
To Dream Girls fans, it was just a name that drifted past.
Not everyone felt that way.
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The investors.
They searched for him desperately.
Of course they did.
Trading stocks is like drifting across a boundless ocean.
In a market where you cannot see an inch ahead.
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No friends / No college / No job
He doesn't fit any of them
He had been their single guiding lighthouse.
Every time the market descended into chaos, he had pointed the way.
Lately his whereabouts had grown mysterious.
Rumors even circulated that he had left the stock market entirely.
[Repost of Dream Gallery recommended post.jpg]
Same-school underclassman, so he just handed her some work
He had been discovered in a place no one expected.
Additional details kept surfacing one after another.
Korea.
The market was simply too small to hide an investor of his prominence.
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Looks like he's buying real estate around there
It was only a matter of time before the rumors spread.
And the fallout was bound to be massive.
His perspective.
It was completely different from what investors had been watching lately.
Doesn't that mean he's building a real bottom?
Looking at the current economy I just can't see it
The stock market was rebounding.
It had bottomed out in the 2000s and rocketed upward in an instant.
2,197.99 ▼2.88 (−1.31%)
And then sideways.
Whether this was a correction or a dead-cat bounce remained hotly contested among investors.
The latter camp was gaining strength.
Because the real estate market was in catastrophic shape.
"Isn't it about time to start buying real estate? There's that school of thought out there. Professor, what's your view?"
"Haha, that is an extremely dangerous idea."
"Dangerous!"
The scales.
They were ready to tip.
He was hardly unaware of the community's mood.
This time is different.
Doctor Doom remembered.
No—he could never forget.
The humiliation Sonik-jwa had inflicted on him.
This was his chance for payback.
And he even had solid grounds to think so.
"Real estate works like this. When the economy is good, everyone and their mother wants to buy, so subscription competition ratios skyrocket."
Stocks had far too many variables.
Even careful predictions could go wrong.
Real estate was different.
Watch the pre-sale market carefully and the rough calculation practically made itself.
"It's true—until just a little while ago the entire nation was going crazy trying to buy property!"
"That tsunami is coming."
"Tsunami?!"
"People only pay attention to the ground shaking when an earthquake hits, but the real damage comes from the tsunami that follows."
He drove the point home.
Doctor Doom.
His popularity did not come solely from predicting crashes.
"Because every pre-sale sold out instantly, construction companies built an insane number of buildings."
"That's why construction stocks jumped, right?"
"Those units are completing one after another. Toxic unsold inventory with no buyers in sight."
It sounded plausible.
Listen long enough and you became convinced it had to happen that way.
A real estate crash.
Korea's future painted itself naturally inside your head.
The reason his followers kept multiplying.
Doctor Doom checked the chat window and smiled with satisfaction.
Heh heh. What did I tell you.
Logically perfect.
Not a single person could even attempt a rebuttal.
The outlook that it would actually play out that way.
His certainty rested on more than one foundation.
It was not only Korea.
The money the U.S. Federal Reserve had steadily poured out since 2008.
Had brought a real-estate tailwind to the entire world.
That era was now ending.
"I never even considered the foreign situation!"
"Exactly. That's why our analysts spent days and nights compiling this material so we can present it to our viewers on air."
Korea was simply a little late.
A bull market sustained by blind faith in real estate.
And bubbles are destined to burst eventually.
That moment was now.
The evidence was overwhelming—too much of it.
Anyone calling for a rise had made a massive mistake.
No—even without calling for it, the same applied.
That was what people believed.
He had thought this was his chance to repay the humiliation.
"Professor, you really worked hard today! Thanks to you, today's content is going to be absolutely on fire."
"Thank you for your efforts. But… content?"
"Next up, Sonik-jwa is coming on~."
"???"
Sonik-jwa was appearing on the broadcast as well.
Real estate.
In Korea it was regarded as an investment asset.
Truth is, that isn't the case worldwide.
Neighboring Japan was the prime example.
Real estate was simply buying a house.
Why would that be an investment asset?
They did not consider it an especially attractive option.
"Hello, Sonik-jwa!"
"Yes, hello."
"It feels like it's been ages since we last saw you~ We reached out several times but couldn't even get a reply……."
That was the correct view.
There was depreciation, plenty of taxes to pay, and new construction kept going up.
That was how it worked in Japan.
In Korea the perception of real estate was different.
It's got the K attached.
It was even more mainstream than stocks.
Most of the population either owned property or paid close attention to it.
.
.
.
It was one of the economic channel's most popular segments.
That was why I was appearing on the broadcast.
"You all keep saying all sorts of things, but it's not like I stopped doing stocks."
"Oh, is that so! We had no idea since we couldn't reach you."
"I'm just not teaching you guys."
"Ah."
That much attention was focused on him.
A real estate downturn.
Newspapers and news channels hammered the topic every single day.
Roughly the same as the stock market.
And then the analysts or whatever they called themselves would appear.
Selling similar books, selling similar lectures.
"Hearing you put it that way is a little… hurtful. For the viewers."
"I said it the first time I came on too."
"Ah, yes!"
"People who are confident they can make money don't bother coming on broadcasts to run their mouths."
It was the same in every world.
They made their living by stoking people's fear psychology.
So.
I showed up occasionally to set the record straight.
That alone was enough to put me at the center of the conversation.
"Ah, the community?"
"Back then my position size was small enough that exposing it didn't carry much impact. Right now there's no reason to raise my own risk by revealing things in real time."
Or rather, it was something people could fail to understand.
Just like the stock market.
Wherever vested interests are involved.
Things do not run on pure reason alone.
Every messy tactic imaginable runs rampant.
Real estate was no different.
Limited to the domestic market, it was even more so.
"Still, since you've kindly come on, how about a word or two~ There are viewers curious about real estate."
"That's why I was planning to offer a few fundamental points."
"Ah, the toxic unsold inventory?"
"Not that crap."
The difference between knowing and not knowing.
It changed your entire approach to the market from the ground up.
Real estate was definitely a bubble.
But that statement did not point toward a crash.
"Plenty of bad news exists, sure. But that's originally when you buy."
"So you see this as the bottom……. If it's not too forward, could you share your reasoning?"
"Under Korean law, real estate has no choice but to rise."
"The law?!"
LoyalistIdiot has been forcibly ejected!
The real estate market had its own operators too.