Korea-Gambia Alliance

Day after day, the market kept falling.

For investors, it was a cauldron of pure suffering.

My account was melting like ice cream left out in the sun.

If only my own account were melting, that would be fine.

The world was full of people with all kinds of circumstances. Every so often the news even covered the fallout. Would-be unfilial sons poured out their private agonies.

Stock communities. When a bear market hit, they actually grew livelier. Shared sorrow was halved, after all. They soothed themselves with memes and jokes if nothing else.

They can't even eat free money. These idiots.

There were also people who wanted to share joy. Hands itching to brag.

He didn't even have to post it himself. One of his followers always noticed and uploaded it for him.

That's right. I told you to buy the flood stock.

It was rainy season. Rain poured down. Some cities flooded. The damage, of course, had to be repaired. Related companies stood to benefit.

The reason Special Reconstruction had mooned. But the community kids only ever knew half the story.

No way a little rainy season alone makes a stock explode like that.

There were plenty of flood-related names. The reason he had specifically picked Special Reconstruction was simple.

It had pumped hard once before. Bundled as a Four Rivers play, the price had been driven up. Political opinions were irrelevant. What mattered was that it had once drawn attention.

Stocks like this rise again the moment any excuse appears!

×× theme stocks. The ×× itself was surprisingly meaningless. Hang it on an ear and it became an earring; hang it on a nose and it became a nose ring. The Illicit Stock Manipulators just stitched together a convenient theme and blasted it.

He had been certain Special Reconstruction would run at least once more.

The result: a tidy profit. Rainy season had only just begun.

I'll overnight it for now and sell at a good moment while watching the situation~.

A little tune hummed itself out of him. Even for a veteran like Yong-su, a score this size had been a while coming.

The Leading Room members had helped, of course. Buying pressure had come in harder than expected.

I eat, you eat — everybody wins, right?

Yong-su smiled with quiet satisfaction. The more profit he printed, the higher his standing rose in the community. That felt better than the money itself. Even if he made tens of millions, there was nowhere special to spend it. For him, this was the real world — the modest self-satisfaction of a full-time retail trader.

Yong-su's brow furrowed. Sonik-jwa had apparently banked a big win as well. That much was possible on its own.

No. This bastard, don't tell me.

The size of the gain was suspicious. +30%. Only one stock had hit the daily limit today. He had gone into Special Reconstruction. The thought was impossible to shake.

He just hopped into the Special Reconstruction I've been pushing and freeloaded the honey!

He had bought Yong-su's recommended stock. If he made money, it was thanks to Yong-su. And yet the brain-dead users were sucking off Sonik-jwa instead. How was he supposed to not boil over?

Maybe the mole was even in here. Infiltrating his Leading Room and siphoning information.

Just you wait.

For a while he would stop scattering free intel. The room members would complain, but he didn't care. July's profits. If he beat that guy, he could snatch back every scrap of community status and every follower.

KOSPI. KOSDAQ. The domestic market was full of stocks that rocketed on pure manipulation. One curious fact:

It's always the same familiar companies.

Always the same old names. They just invented different excuses to jack the price. Click, clack! The identical stock would rise under a brand-new theme. Knowing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the classic pump-and-dump names never hurt.

I roughly remember them now.

Special Reconstruction. The company itself was nothing special. Operating profit was thin, and even that frequently flipped to red. Frankly, a decent Gangnam restaurant probably made more money. And the more unremarkable the company—

the more eagerly it colludes with the operators.

Every pump carried one risk. No matter how many shares the operators bought, the CEO always held more. Obviously. There were real cases where they jacked the price only for the CEO to dump everything and vanish.

1. The CEO takes a cut and looks the other way.

2. The CEO joins the operation himself (?)

Stocks that got classified as theme names over and over. That the CEO was in bed with the operators was an open secret.

You can't call this anything but a third-world financial market.

The reality of the Korean stock market. Even when they ran the most blatant operations, the financial regulators just sat around picking their noses. But that didn't mean you always had to be the victim. If you knew which companies were colluding with the operators—

—you could use it yourself.

Special Reconstruction was a name he had traded before. And the chart looked pretty clean, too. A flood-related stock. If news hit, the odds of Special Reconstruction running looked high. This was how he hunted: figuring out which garbage penny would fly next.

Crunch!

Of course it wasn't easy. Mental stamina burned off as fast as an all-out sprint.

No matter how much experience and analysis narrow the possibilities…

Aggressive trading in a bear market was dangerous. Getting completely wrecked wouldn't even be surprising. Even so, he had to do it. Looking at recent community trends, a competitor had clearly appeared.

That could happen. Profit flexing was entertainment for full-time traders too.

The problem is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they only brag when they're winning.

Which was why he kept posting proof steadily. So that someday, looking back, the feeling would hit fresh.

Still, in the short term another trader could print bigger numbers. A small controversy was brewing.

It's not like I feel real competitive fire, but…

His recent profits had stalled for unavoidable reasons. He had needed to diamond-hand. Then the bear market. He could feel the trend shifting. In periods like that, cutting back on trades was the correct move. The scouting phase was over. He could invest aggressively now. He had already found the next stock worth hunting.

Recently the Republic of Korea had gained a new ally. In certain corners of the internet it was becoming a minor talking point. Where the hell even was Gambia? How big was its military? It was a country almost no one had heard of. Anyone who didn't trade stocks would laugh and scroll past. But for investors, it became opportunity.

The Korea-Gambia Alliance is rock solid.

This was a market where you had to go insane to make money.