Long-Short Battle

Bombshell remark.

The stock community was bound to explode over this.

A stock that had been drawing serious attention lately.

Its value was being called into question.

Raised by one famous YouTuber.

The kind of thing that happened all the time.

Just chasing views.

But this one couldn't be dismissed so easily.

Not for some random YouTuber.

She boasted deep ties.

A celebrity inside the stock community.

That was why Sora's words drew so much attention.

No—people couldn't help but be curious.

Paran-Domi.

Its stock price was soaring on hype for Racing King Eom Bok-dong.

Investor interest was white-hot.

They believed there was still room to run higher.

But what if that hype was nothing more than hope?

A crash was as good as guaranteed.

And there was a way to invest in that outcome too.

Short selling.

Retail investors generally didn't do it.

Because the playing field was tilted.

They had effectively made it impossible for retail.

That risk.

Public opinion was forming that it was worth taking.

Because the words had come from Sora's mouth.

She had built up trust over time.

This wasn't some YouTuber's agitation.

Sentiment was tilting toward believing her.

Joining the short-selling parade.

Some investors thought that way.

But of course there were others.

Investment judgments always split.

Hardcore shareholders.

They didn't believe Sora's words.

They were captivated by the rising price.

No—they had no choice.

More than one or two people had seen the premiere, after all.

The critics.

They were pouring out praise.

At the very least, no one was saying anything bad.

Even multiple analysts.

The reasons to buy the stock sank straight into investors' heads.

Of course they got hooked.

Confirmation bias didn't break easily.

One little bitch can't put a curse on this.

Jang Seon-young breathed a little easier.

Handle it calmly and it was nothing special.

The operation.

Think about it rationally and anyone could see the absurdity of the facts.

Yet people still fell for it.

There was always a reason for that.

If the stock rose?

Even if it still rose?

Human judgment flipped like a palm.

"We're pulling volume up!"

"We can start soon, right?"

"Execute."

It wasn't just floating good news.

Technically, they made people want to buy.

How long have we been hardened in this industry.

Big Ant Capital.

With years of know-how they professionally controlled the stock price.

The operation team was largely divided into three types.

After the rolling team bought and sold to pump volume—

—the supply team scraped the market price clean upward.

Sending a massive green candle rocketing in one shot.

How do you even hold back from this.

The retail ants watching the chart.

They stamped their feet and only then jumped in.

Or maybe they hesitated.

It had shot up too hard in a short time—surely there would be a pullback.

The way it climbed right in front of their eyes.

They could already picture in their heads how much they would have made if they had bought just now.

It triggered sharp FOMO.

All that remained was for the ants to cling on in clusters.

And then we slowly dump the shares on them.

Until opening day, that is.

They would keep shaking it up and down, torturing them with hope.

If the price rose and other people bought?

They would believe the movie was going to be a hit.

One YouTuber couldn't put a curse on that.

They had only been preparing to print money.

The stock price plunged.

It was thrashing around, smashing through key chart levels.

"What the hell, who sold? The mood's great right now, why are we giving a pullback?!"

For Jang Seon-young it was impossible not to be sensitive.

In an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠operation, psychology was everything.

The ants had to buy.

Scare them like that and their fingers wouldn't even reach the buy button.

"It wasn't us!"

"Not the rolling team?"

"Not us either. We only accumulate."

"Then who dumped this much volume……."

Someone had sold ahead of them.

Pre-reflection.

Common knowledge to any stock investor.

Sometimes more important than information itself.

The stock price is rising?

People start thinking there must be some good news.

Faster than the news is the Nasdaq one-minute chart.

There was even a joke like that.

Stocks had that aspect too.

Isn't the stock rising because it's already pre-reflected?

That's how subject and object get reversed sometimes.

A common trick of the illicit stock manipulators.

First float the price, then leak some plausible good news into the market.

The ants believe it.

Because the price is going up.

Even if they know it's a lie.

There was nothing they could do about it.

If people believed, the stock rose—that was the stock market.

Until now, that is.

Money and influence.

You needed them to change the market's flow.

I hadn't had them before.

From now on I had more than enough.

Sora's claim was clearly influencing the market.

On the ants' psychology.

It worked in reverse too.

Isn't the falling price pre-reflecting bad news?

Double kill!

Triple kill!

Of course it wasn't easy.

Betting tens or hundreds of billions.

It created fights between manipulators.

I was long past being green at that kind of thing.

You have to handle this much money

to feel like stock trading is worth it.

Thanks to Sora I had landed an entertaining score.

Long-short battle.

They would slug it out for a while.

Defending and seizing key chart levels.

Double kill!

Triple kill!

Steering the big flow the way I wanted.

Crushing one manipulator was only a matter of time.

It'll take a bit, though.

A fight between whales.

If ants got in the middle they would get their backs broken like shrimp.