The Making of an All-Rounder
"Hey, you rascal. What on earth happened? You've barely been in the Trading Division, and you pull off a stunt this size? Hahahaha!"
The dinner had originally been arranged to celebrate my promotion, but somewhere along the way it had doubled as a celebration of my latest results as well.
"I just got lucky, that's all."
"How is that luck? You know I'm a Director at the Group, don't you? I know exactly how you traded. No—wait. I didn't even watch it that closely, but you pulled leverage on top of everything else. How many hearts does a man need to trade like that?"
"I'm sorry."
"Hm?"
"I was worried I might have made trouble for you, Chairman... taking on such a dangerous investment."
The Chairman was a Director of Daesung Group.
That was why he had plugged me into the securities firm in the first place.
In other words, if I mishandled anything, it would be no different from smearing mud across the Chairman's own face.
"It's fine."
The Chairman topped up my glass as he spoke.
"However the process went, you delivered results in the end, didn't you? And I've watched you long enough to know—you are not a man who does reckless things. Whenever someone in our hiking club tries to take a dangerous cliffside trail, you stop him by any means necessary. When it comes to safety, you're downright obsessive about it."
Well, that much was true.
Whenever you climb mountains, there are always people who insist on taking the very routes they've been told to avoid. And that's how accidents happen. Our club never tolerated it—if a trail looked even slightly dangerous, it was common for me to shut down the day's hike altogether.
"Some of them resented it at first, but other hiking clubs kept having accidents over exactly that, so these days everyone listens to you and no one else. Honestly, they seem to follow your word more than mine, and I'm the Chairman."
The truth was, I stayed careful every single time because if an accident ever did happen, it would all feel like my responsibility. Wasn't it the youngest member's job to look after the elders?
"Which is exactly why I knew a fellow who guards our safety that meticulously would never invest foolishly. If you took on a risky-looking trade with leverage stacked on top, then you must have had grounds to match. Am I wrong?"
"...That's right."
"Then we're done. If a pathologically safety-obsessed man charged in like he had the heart of a beast, then from where you stood, it wasn't dangerous at all. You had conviction of your own."
The Chairman was right.
I had thrown my winning hand because I trusted my sense of smell.
Of course, I didn't mention that the grounds in question happened to be my own nose. Fortunately, the Chairman didn't press me about where exactly that conviction had come from.
"Oh, right. I hear you've been running around real estate lately. What's that about? Planning to buy a place with your incentive bonus?"
"As for a house, where I live now is fine. I'll move someday, but first I want to grant my mother's wish."
"Hm? Ah. You did mention that before, didn't you. That your dream is to set your mother up with a shop of her own."
"Oh? You remember that?"
"Heh. When I heard it, I thought—now there's a young man with real filial devotion. So, you've been scouting for a shop?"
"Yes. As it happens, I've found a promising spot. I'm drawing up plans to try opening a restaurant there."
At that, the Chairman clapped his hands together with a smack.
"Perfect timing. You know President Kim from our club, don't you? The man runs a fairly large interior design company. Once you've settled on a location, give him a call."
"Would that really be all right?"
"If you're the one asking, that fellow will probably come do the work himself. And the moment he hears it's a shop you're opening for your mother, he'll come running, tickled pink. Heh heh."
I'd been worried about the renovation, since you hear so many horror stories about people getting swindled by contractors. Going through someone I knew did seem like the wiser path.
"By the way, is your mother a good cook?"
"Yes. And that's not just because she's my mother—when it comes to Korean cuisine, she truly is the best in the country."
"My, that good, huh? Then I simply must go taste it."
"You'd like to come by sometime?"
"What's this 'sometime'? From now on, every single hiking club outing starts at your mother's restaurant. Haha."
My mother knew how well the Chairman treated me and had been saying she wanted to repay him somehow—this worked out perfectly.
"Keep working hard at the company just as you have been. If you believe you're right, push it all the way to the end. I may not have the influence I once did, but I can still back one man—you."
"You've already done more than enough."
"I went over there and had a word with them, so no one will be giving you trouble from now on. Just work in peace."
"You really didn't have to go that far."
"Heh. That's the only way I can rest easy. I'm the one who put you in there—of course I have to take responsibility."
The two of us clinked our glasses with a crisp chime. I couldn't begin to fathom how my life had come to meet such a benefactor.
Daesung Securities Headquarters, 25th floor, main conference room.
Above the heavily sunken air, only the dry rustle of turning pages echoed.
Seated at the head of the table, CEO Kwon Junyong was skimming the weekly report before him, his brow drawn tight.
Flanking him sat the executives who represented the face of Daesung Securities: the Research Center Director, the Trading Division Head, the Head of Investment Banking, the Head of Risk Management—the core of the company.
It was the regular weekly executive meeting, but today the heat in the room was unlike any other week.
"Begin your reports."
When Kwon Junyong opened with those few words, the Research Center Director was the first to clear his throat and speak.
"I'll begin with this week's global conditions. The US Federal Reserve's hawkish rhetoric continues, and Treasury yields are swinging again. The market is pricing in a rate cut within the year, but Chairman Powell still treats taming inflation as his top priority—the gap between the two is wide."
The Director pulled up a chart on the screen with practiced ease and continued.
"That said, setting these variables aside, the domestic market is showing a distinctly issue-driven rally. In particular, the recent Barents Sea ship drifting incident has triggered a rapid revaluation of the shipbuilding and steel sectors."
"Is there no pushback from China?"
"The Chinese government has been voicing its displeasure through state-run media, but the European shipowners have already turned their backs. With the technical flaw laid so plainly bare, LNG carrier orders are structurally bound to funnel toward Korean shipyards for the time being. Our Center judges this the beginning of a super cycle, and we plan to step up our related coverage."
"A super cycle... 'Super cycle' makes a pretty word—isn't this just short-term overheating?"
At that, an executive sitting with his arms crossed cut in.
"Look at the PERs on the shipbuilding and steel names right now. In barely a week, they've punched through their upper bands. Rising this hard on expectation alone, before a single earnings figure has even been posted—that's a textbook bubble sign. If only to protect our clients' assets, shouldn't we be sending out a warning signal?"
Across the table, Trading Division Head Hwang Yu-seong burst into a snickering laugh.
"Oh, come now, Senior Managing Director Park. Since when do people in Yeouido wait for confirmed earnings before moving in? Liquidity is flooding the market—there's no need to splash cold water on it."
"Division Head Hwang! This is turning from investment into a speculation pit. Take that business in the bio sector a few days ago—that... smashing through a 10 billion won Sell Wall. Do you call that normal trading?"
The executives' eyes flashed.
The AS Bio incident.
Everyone in this room knew it.
Hadn't it even become quite the talk of Yeouido? Some might call it fuss over a mere 10 billion won, but this wasn't the KOSPI—on the KOSDAQ, 10 billion won was a wall that had made grown traders weep.
And someone had smashed through that wall single-handedly, trampling the short-selling forces into the dirt. Of course every eye had turned to him.
"Speculation? That was righteous investment—correcting a distortion in the market. The short sellers were pressing that price down out of malice, and we broke through with legitimate order flow. And we pocketed a handsome profit while we were at it, if I may say."
"Returns aren't everything! Have you thought about the blow the company would have taken if it had failed? What on earth were you thinking, going so far as to use leverage—"
"Doesn't the result speak for itself? The result. Valuing outcomes over process—that's Yeouido, isn't it? Besides, the Risk team judged the leverage sound and granted approval. That's why it went through."
Hwang Yu-seong squared his shoulders, flush with triumph. A taut tension crackled among the executives.
Research, Trading, and Risk Management had always been oil and water. Checking and snapping at one another was business as usual—but today the ferocity was on another level entirely.
And no wonder: Daesung Securities' results had lately erupted in grotesque fashion. Money was pouring in from places no one had expected, on a scale no one had predicted.
And all of it thanks to a single man.
"Everyone, calm down."
Kwon Junyong doused the overheated atmosphere for a moment. He knew all too well why they were baring their teeth at one another.
They all wanted to take the same man for themselves.
"It's true the risk was significant. Check your credit balance ratios and manage unsettled payments rigorously. But as Division Head Hwang says, we do have to row when the tide comes in. We can't stand on our dignity with our hands behind our backs while our market share gets stolen. Yes, they call Daesung one of the Three Major Financial Groups—but the truth is we've been falling a long way behind, haven't we?"
"..."
"What about IB? I hear the IPO market has frozen over lately."
"Yes, sir. The rate hikes have big-name issuers withdrawing their listings—it isn't easy. That said, with the bio sector coming back to life, several bio ventures are moving to refile for preliminary listing reviews. We're in contact along those lines."
"Bio, hm..."
Kwon Junyong rolled his fountain pen between his fingers, lost in thought. Semiconductors, shipbuilding, steel—and now bio. Every one of these sectors Daesung Securities had touched of late had detonated into a windfall.
On the surface, the executives were clamoring, each brandishing his own expertise. But Kwon Junyong knew. At the center of every one of these currents stood a single man.
Kang Suho.
The crown prince sent by Director Geum Gaho.
The play one lone associate had launched had become a butterfly effect, and it now dominated even the agenda of the executive meeting.
"Honestly, I've never seen returns like these. He turned 6 billion won into 12 billion in a single day. And not through some jackpot on options or derivatives—thoroughly, purely through stock trading."
On the Yeouido floor, it was likely without precedent. A 100 percent return in a single day, out of a Trading Division that set its monthly target at 5 percent—a record bordering on legend.
"He truly is a remarkable young man. From the Research Center to the Trading Division, all he does is post outsized results. If there's one thing that catches in my throat... it's that the man who brought in this Associate Kang Suho was Director Geum Gaho himself. You're aware of that as well, sir, aren't you?"
Heavy swallows sounded around the room. Though Director Geum Gaho had long since stepped away from this world, he could still wield his influence whenever he pleased.
"We couldn't find detailed information on Associate Kang Suho, so we have no way of knowing what his relationship with Director Geum might be. Sir, have you heard anything...?"
"I don't know the details myself. Only this: to Director Geum, that young man Kang Suho is like a son."
"!?"
At those words, the executives jolted upright in their seats. They knew all too well what a "son" meant to Geum Gaho, didn't they?
"Th-that much, you say?"
It seemed the definition of Kang Suho would have to be drawn up all over again. He was no mere young master born into a chaebol house.
"Director Geum appears determined to raise Associate Kang Suho properly. The young man has ability, so I'd say he means to test just where those limits lie. That's why he sent him in at the very bottom, as an intern, from the very start."
"Come to think of it, Director Geum has always been one to temper his people hard."
CEO Kwon Junyong was himself one such person. When someone had ability, Director Geum supported him vigorously—and tempered him hard at the same time.
"In fact, Associate Kang Suho's eye for finance is exceptional. That's how he's produced these staggering results. With a record like this, he'll take the top rating in the next promotion round."
Barely a breath after pinning on the associate badge, the young man looked set to climb again. To a stranger's eye, it would look like an unfair promotion bought with family connections.
"A talent with this kind of ability? Naturally we cultivate him."
"Yes. I intend to support that actively. In Research, he proved the discerning eye that dissects the market; in Trading, the beastly instinct that rides the current. So isn't it time for the next stage—the precision to design the market itself?"
"Then the next post you have in mind for Associate Kang Suho would be..."
"Send him to Delta One."
Delta One.
Every major securities house in the world keeps at least one such department.
It handles futures, ETFs, swaps—above all, it is a place that mechanically harvests profit from the price gaps between stocks and futures.
It was not a place for charging at jackpots with the heart of a beast, but a department that tolerated not even the most trivial error, through exhaustive design.
"Is Delta One really the right seat for Associate Kang Suho? The way that young man trades, how should I put it... he seems to relish stimulating, adventurous bets. Isn't that department the polar opposite of such a manic temperament?"
"When I spoke with Director Geum recently, it struck me that he sent the young man to the Research Center—as an intern, no less—in order to forge a truly fine trader. If all he'd wanted was a simple trader, he'd have sent him straight to the Trading Division from the beginning."
But Geum Gaho had sent Kang Suho to the Research Center. As if to command him: break through from the very bottom and conquer each stage, one by one.
"Then if he keeps moving from department to department, growing step by step like that, that young man will..."
"...!"
All-Rounder.
Every field has what its dreamers call the summit. One who has mastered everything that field contains. That is what they call an All-Rounder.
"Given the ability he's shown so far, the possibility is certainly there. Please give him the support he needs to shine in Delta One as well."
"But, sir. Isn't this Kang Suho ultimately a man Director Geum Gaho planted? The Group may not take kindly to this."
For all that Kwon Junyong was CEO of Daesung Securities, not every executive at the table was his man. Half of them, after all, owed their loyalty to the Group, didn't they?
"With the Daesung Group already in an uproar over the succession, Director Geum's sudden return can hardly sit comfortably."
What was more, the Daesung Group was even now hard at work on its succession—laboring to make its heir the next emperor.
"Let's not think so one-dimensionally. Director Geum is not returning. He is simply raising a single talent. If Associate Kang Suho grows well, isn't that a good thing for our Daesung Group too? Shouldn't we have at least one securities man as world-famous as those on Wall Street?"
"Ahem. Well, that's..."
If the man meant to cultivate good talent and spend it for the Group, they had no complaint. But neither would they lower their suspicious gazes.
I don't know what the Director is planning with Kang Suho, but—
It seemed the mountains he would have to cross were more than one or two.