Holding a Short for the Long Run

"Sh—... you want to short it?"

Assistant Manager Kim Seung-won blurted it, startled.

"Assistant Manager Chae... you know shorts are two-times leveraged by default, right?"

"Yes, I've heard. Let it drift sideways and your principal just melts."

"...And you know stocks trend up over the long run? Retail traders like us, miss the timing once and..."

"I know. You can't even sit on a short and wait it out, so it's a hard way to trade."

"...You know all that, and you still want to short?"

I nodded once.

"Yes. Because that stock is going down. I'm sure of it."

Kim Seung-won turned it over, visibly uneasy.

"I'll give you that... The news lines up, and your feel for these things has been worth trusting, but..."

"Well, investing is a personal choice. I'm shorting."

I left it at that, took out my phone, and searched for the short on the stock Ryu Yeon-sang had been talking about.

This is it. The short on the name he mentioned.

But in the instant before I bought, a thought cut across my mind.

Wait. Does my ability even work on a short?

The ability was clear enough: I could tell, ahead of time, when a stock was about to fall. A short, though, makes money precisely because the price drops. If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the trade isn't dangerous to me, maybe the signal never comes.

Let's test it.

Before I committed, I bought exactly one share and stared at the chart. No chill. Nothing at all.

Hmm...

"Assistant Manager Chae, you're actually going to buy? You're really shorting?"

The result felt inconclusive, so I bought a single share of the leveraged product Ryu Yeon-sang himself was holding.

A chill.

...!!!

Scalping had already taught me something. The sensation I got from a chart came in two kinds. Watching a stock about to drop in the next moment felt different from sensing that the day's whole trend was down. The first was a brief, eerie prickle. The second was my body drawing in on itself. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠didn't get the second every time—but whenever I did, that day closed in the red without fail.

It had been that way with Kim Seung-won's Samsung Electronics, and with Google, and with the names that were running hot. Not when I looked at Apple...

What I felt now was unmistakably the second kind. I dumped the long at once and, right there in front of him, bought the short.

Click.

That settled it.

Shorting itself doesn't tell me whether a price will fall or rise. Buy the underlying, though, and I can get the certainty that it's going down.

A thin disappointment drifted through me.

...Which means this is going to be awkward to use for scalps.

Not difficult, exactly. Inefficient. If it isn't falling, it's either chopping or rising, and if I'm already watching the chart to scalp, there's no reason to step into a short I can't confirm. Sideways markets nick you a little at a time, too. The larger the seed money gets, the more a day trade wants the underlying, not the short.

Beep.

The moment the order filled, my account lit red—the color of a gain.

Not a hundredth of a percent. Two hundredths, immediately. Leverage, doing its work.

Ryu Yeon-sang's account, by contrast, would already be melting by three hundredths.

But if this isn't a scalp—if I'm holding—it's a different story.

Buy the underlying, get the signal that today closes down, then just short it and wait. I wouldn't know how much I'd make. I would know that I made something.

Just like Ryu's stock.

The perfect edge.

Good enough for the hours I'm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stuck at the office and can't watch a chart.

That had been the problem. Without the screen in front of me I couldn't be sure which way a name would move, so whenever I wasn't scalping I couldn't invest at all. This way, I could hold for the longer term and still be safe.

One thing I know. Nobody else is putting on a long-term short with certainty like this.

I was still turning it over when Kim Seung-won's voice reached me.

"Assistant Manager Chae... you really shorted it?"

He was all over the place. Buy this second, or keep sitting on his hands—that was the argument behind his eyes.

That's the ordinary reaction, really.

A short presses on you in a way a long never does. A stock climbs on its own, slowly, as the company and its technology improve. A short needs bad news before it pays. Short something, and a sudden piece of good news sends the price up twenty percent?

You're down forty on the spot, and then it's the Han River...

Which is why ordinary retail traders are genuinely afraid to short.

I'm not.

I meant to steady the anxious Kim Seung-won ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by showing him my account. Then one of his own lines came back to me. His words, not anyone else's.

Right. Even if it is Kim Seung-won, showing him the entire account might still be premature.

Not until I was sure he was completely on my side.

But if I show him nothing and tell him to bet everything he has, even he won't take it on faith. So what do I do...

I turned to him with a serious face.

"I'm certain. I just went all-in on the short."

"All-... all-in? You shorted everything you own? Assistant Manager Chae, I know you can't stand Ryu, but isn't this a little emotional?"

At that I covered the total with my thumb and let him catch only the return.

This much ought to be safe.

To him, it probably looked like this.

Kim Seung-won saw the return, and his mouth fell open.

"...Assistant Manager Chae, what kind of number is that? Six hundred seventeen percent? Six times your money?"

"I just put all of it into the short."

"Haah... you're that convinced?"

He was still wavering.

Beep.

And even now, my account was creeping higher.

Eighty thousand won. The moment I saw it, a memory cut through me.

Eighty thousand won. That was what I'd lost the first time I tested the ability.

I'd made sixty thousand, then lost eighty, and grieved that I could no longer afford kkanpunggi—that sweet, crispy fried chicken—or a YouTube Premium subscription.

Now I had enough to eat ten thousand plates of the stuff.

And every bit of it was thanks to Kim Seung-won. Without him, I still wouldn't have given a single thought to stocks.

Even after I started making money, he'd kept giving me advice for my own sake.

I made up my mind.

"Assistant Manager Kim."

"Uh... yeah?"

"Dump everything you have into the short. Right now. And sell when I tell you to sell."

Assistant Manager Kim—I'll settle the tab for that chicken. Properly, this time.

But the look on his face was pure fear.

"It... it may be going down, but everything I have is a bit much... Should I just short about five million won?"

"Sir."

I caught him by the shoulder.

"If you lose money on the short, I'll make your principal whole out of my own pocket. Trust me. Short it."

"A-are you sure that's all right? Assistant Manager Chae? Even so, that's..."

"Don't worry. My feel for this is pretty good, isn't it? This time it's a lock. You saw the return. Does Ryu even compare?"

"Ha... but..."

"Sir."

He wrestled with it for a long while. In the end, he nodded.

"The principal guarantee. Y-you're serious? I'm recording this. The recorder's on right now, you hear me? No walking it back."

"If I lose you money, I'll pay for your site lunches for the rest of your life."

And so, hands trembling, he bet everything he had on the short.

Click.

After the two of us closed ranks on the short up in the smoking area, we went back down to the office and worked as if nothing had happened. Later I had a work matter to take up with Ryu Yeon-sang. The moment that conversation ended—

"So, Assistant Manager Chae. Did you actually short it?"

He got there first, the mockery already in his voice.

"Yes. I did."

I answered him head-on.

Pfft—!

He burst out laughing and shoved his account in front of me.

"See this, Assistant Manager Chae? This is why you study before you invest. Get conviction like mine and you go all-in—one trade, and your whole life flips. Up another 0.6 percent since earlier. You see that?"

His bet was bold, I'll give him that. A principal of 320 million won meant he'd staked every won a working life could save.

And from what I'd heard, he was married, and he'd thrown his wife's money in too.

"I don't know how much you put in, Assistant Manager Chae, but if all you're doing is shorting a solid stock, you'll never see a hundred-million-won profit in your life."

I checked my own account.

As far as his stock had risen, mine had fallen.

Right. Holding without a chart in front of me means I have to stomach a little red along the way.

But by the time the market closed today...

"I see, Assistant Manager Ryu. Thank you for the lesson."

Now he was giggling openly.

"What are you gonna do, losing money like that? Want me to buy you lunch?"

"I'm fine. I'll eat with Assistant Manager Kim."

"Sure, sure. If he'd listened to me a minute ago and gone long like I did, he'd already have made his lunch money. He didn't, thanks to you, so the least you can do is pick up his tab."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The clock chimed for lunch. I was heading for Kim Seung-won's desk when I caught something I wasn't meant to see.

He'd been pretending otherwise, but ever since the short he'd been a wreck, glued to his phone. His chair was empty. The monitor was still on, and up on the screen was a forum I'd come across once or twice while digging through stock boards.

...Assistant Manager Kim sure does live on that forum...

Just then he hurried back in and closed the window. I carefully acted as if I hadn't seen a thing.

"...Shall we go get something to eat?"

"...Yes."

After a simple meal we returned to the office, and he kept stealing glances at his phone while pretending he wasn't.

From lunch onward, though, Ryu Yeon-sang and his little crew kept the childish games going.

Heh heh.

On the way down we'd passed Jihye from accounting. She'd taken one look at us, let out a little snort of a laugh, and walked on by.

"...What was that? Why did Jihye laugh at us and just walk off?"

Kim Seung-won frowned, just a little. Back in the office, the sneering looks only got worse.

Manager Kim from the architecture team was the worst of it. He came by the way he always did, to dump his work on someone else, and what came out of his mouth was something else.

"Assistant Manager Chae, mind going to check the short room— ah, oops. The showroom?"

"......"

Pfft.

From beside me came the small sound of Ryu Yeon-sang failing to hold in a laugh.

Oh, so that's how it is...?

From the look of it, everyone who'd followed him into the stock was in on the joke.

Let them. Any minute now...

It wouldn't take long for the laughter to turn into screams.