The Long-Short War
Paran-Domi.
One YouTuber's courageous, unfiltered take was shaking the market.
.
.
.
None of that pointed to a falling stock price.
The existing bullish catalysts had clearly been diluted — but still.
Embarrassed to admit I didn't know
That even under Japanese colonial rule, there was an athlete who lifted our people's spirit……
There was another bullish catalyst.
Paran-Domi was not a stock that had risen on box-office hype alone.
Patriot Theme Stocks.
The ever-rising public appetite for national glory was feeding the share price.
The release timing is perfect
March 1st Independence Movement Day!
A patriotic film dropping on the day the national spirit burns brightest — ten million tickets are basically locked in~
And it was true.
A film's release date could absolutely affect its box office. Anticipation for the anti-Japan movie Race King Um Bok-dong was climbing — and that was a factor stoking retail investors' appetite.
Looks like that young lady only watched the movie for fun
Anti-Japan films have to be seen for the sorrow woven into the era
Kids these days don't even know how vicious the Japanese occupation was
So of course they don't get the value of this film either
Middle-aged and older viewers, in particular, were responding with enormous enthusiasm. Interest in patriotic cinema was blazing hot.
Paran-Domi's stock. Every time the price dipped, they kept buying and propping it up.
Boss, are you still alive?
"I'm alive, over……."
For Sora, it was pure agony.
She had seen it with her own eyes.
That thing is a total fucking disaster!
The king's ears are donkey ears! This had to be how that courtier felt after screaming it into the bamboo grove.
No — she had screamed it. The market just refused to believe her, and the frustration was driving her insane.
SHORT / Paran-Domi │ 3,000 shares │ −13.17%
Unrealized P&L: −₩8,099,550
The stock still refused to break. It kept circling the ₩20,000–₩25,000 range. At one point it had even climbed into profit territory — the problem was that once commissions were factored in, she was still underwater.
Fuck.
Retail traders couldn't short sell freely! Experiencing it firsthand made the weight of it hit even harder. The gravity was on a completely different level from ordinary stock trading. A trade that should have been a win was printing as a loss.
⚠ Short-sale order has been filled!
She had gone in knowing the risk. She was certain this stock was going down.
"You die or I die. Let's fucking go."
She had seen it. She knew Race King Um Bok-dong was going to be the defining dumpster fire of 2019.
And yet she still wavered. Watching the price climb made her wonder if her judgment was wrong.
You manipulator bastards, drop already!
It was smoke and mirrors. In the end, price followed value. It just took a little time.
But you should think carefully — retail short sales have a repayment deadline
"No, I saw it!!"
That time had a limit. Retail short sales had to be settled within sixty days. If the manipulators held the price up? Even if her call was right, she would still take a loss.
I just have to hold until opening day.
Sora had her own conviction. Race King Um Bok-dong opened on March 1st. Some people were reading that as a bullish catalyst — claiming it would stoke national pride.
⚠ Short-sale order has been filled!
A catalyst for lifting the stock. But bubbles always burst. The market's reason would return. That was the moment this trade was aimed at.
Her viewers were riding along with her. Honestly, the pressure was real — but.
It's really going to happen.
Stock investing. What you needed wasn't cold judgment alone. You needed the mental fortitude to match. Only people with heavy asses walked away with profits.
"Hold until opening day. Don't get shaken, everyone. Paran-Domi crash, let's go!"
Sora had a sufficiently heavy ass.
Big Ant Capital.
They had no choice but to go into emergency mode.
"Volume is dropping!"
"That red candle just slammed way too hard."
"Pump the flow — pump the flow!"
An "operation" swallowed enormous capital — the kind of money equal to a mid-sized company's annual revenue.
Which bastard is actually doing this.
Tens of billions of won used to shake a stock price. An act that inevitably carried massive risk.
✓ Buy order filled!
✓ Sell order filled!
Buy, sell. Artificially inflating volume meant the commissions alone ran into the hundreds of millions. There was also all the time they had already sunk into this. That was why Jang Seon-young could not abandon Paran-Domi.
"We've revived the volume."
"Good."
"But a significant portion looks like short selling?"
"……."
No — it was entirely possible. This was not a market one YouTuber could move on her own.
These retail bastards have balls the size of their heads.
The resistance was fiercer than expected. Followers were piling in and becoming a real nuisance. If that had been all, they could have handled it somehow. Illicit stock manipulators were never easy to deal with —
⚠ The operators have sold shares!
Double kill!
Triple kill!
Something was out there. Every time the chart started to stabilize, it snapped the trend.
Which bastard is it, seriously.
Definitely not a retail trader. Whoever it was had capital power on par with their own.
But there was also something they didn't have.
Seon-young hurriedly dialed his phone.
"It's me, sir."
Ah, CEO Jang! Things going well?
"That's actually why I'm calling……."
Park Gwang-jae, CEO of Paran-Domi. His presence was what made the operation possible — what let them run a board this big. Built on information asymmetry.
Nothing's wrong at all. It's definitely fine!
The retail ants would be trembling with anxiety — wondering whether the film would truly hit, or crash and burn.
You think they can keep shorting just because they trust that one woman?
They were only hanging on. In truth, their guts had to be burning.
Gulp.
They had to be. Information asymmetry was the single greatest weapon they held. A zero-sum game. In a game where one side had to lose, it delivered an overwhelming edge.
"What are your orders?"
"Nothing's changed. Proceed!"
"Yes, sir!"
That was how they had always won. And they would keep winning. They did not pull their feet out of a fight that had been picked with them.
If a short covering cascade just hits.
It would actually be an opportunity. They could sweep up double everything they had poured in so far.
✓ Buy order filled!
✓ Sell order filled!
They jacked up the volume. Made it look like a hot stock. Stimulated retail buying psychology. And the method for landing the finishing blow —
✓ Buy order filled!
✓ Buy order filled!
✓ B-b-buy order filled!
.
.
.
They triggered FOMO. Spike the price in one shot and people would want to buy.
This bastard is really tenacious.
Every time — short selling. It couldn't just be ordinary selling. They had mapped Paran-Domi's share structure. The CEO held 30%. Related parties held 10%. Their own side held roughly 30%. And about half of that was locked up — volume that would neither be sold nor bought no matter what happened.
"The shares available to borrow are going to dry up."
"How much is left?"
"Can't say exactly. But not much."
To short sell, someone had to lend you the shares. And those people were growing scarcer.
No matter how you look at it.
Market liquidity. Information asymmetry. There was no way to overcome this tilted playing field. Even if, by some chance, it was a rival operator of equal caliber. There was a reason illicit stock manipulators didn't fight each other.
"What the hell — why is it dropping all of a sudden."
"It's not short selling."
"Retail is dumping!"
"What? Why? The mood was good."
"Th-that's……."
It was supposed to be a game they won no matter what. Seon-young's reasoning was not wrong — and yet.
The lead actor posted on social media?
There had been an unexpected variable. Some people could not be bought with money.
Drunk honesty came through loud and clear.