Chapter 35
Chapter 35
The black-haired investor awakened as a superhuman 035
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It hadn't even been a few minutes since I posted the tweet.
The screen overflowed with notifications.
I gripped my smartphone in one hand and swiped down the screen.
└ EnergyWatchdog (@EnergyWatch):
Timely warning! Totally agree and appreciate the excellent analysis.
└ CommoditiesKing (@Comm_King):
Exactly! The saturation of the Cushing storage will have a huge impact on market liquidity beyond just physical limitations.
The gap between spot and futures will widen enormously. As Mr. Na's tweet suggests, an unprecedented situation will occur.
└ MacroHedge (@MacroHedging):
I thought it was very sharp as soon as I saw it. In particular, this scenario is bound to be fatal to almost all futures traders who cannot take physical delivery.
Surely there aren't any traders foolish enough to ignore such a kind warning?
└ CrudeRealist (@Crudegoing):
It's terrifying because it's so realistic. I'm holding my breath from the same perspective.
As HyunWoo analyzed, traders will have no choice but to be unable to take crude oil on the expiration date. If that happens, the futures contract will put pressure on the spot market, and prices will collapse miserably.
└ liumcity (@liumcity):
Thank you. I'm glad you warned us at such an important time.
This tweet will help a lot of people.
└ kala777 (@kala777):
You're still in the oil market! What are you doing? Why aren't you running away right now?
└ CommoditiesGuru (@Comm_Guru):
This is a warning from the hottest star manager on Wall Street these days. I'm sure we're all lucky to have seen this tweet.
But on the monitor I glanced at, crude oil futures prices were still trending the same way.
Even a hot star manager on Wall Street couldn't have more influence than Trump, the so-called president of the world.
Knowing that, I felt a slight sense of defeat creeping in.
WTI Crude Oil Futures (CL) was displayed largely at the bottom of the screen.
Buy orders were pouring in there in real time.
A familiar pattern.
The market always reacted the same way.
Speculative capital pouncing on every buy signal. An instinct to flock in one direction instead of balancing between buying and selling.
When prices rise, more money tends to follow.
The numbers at the bottom of the screen were turning greener and greener.
$21.50
$21.65
$21.80.
Clearly, at this moment, the rise in oil prices had become the trend.
Looking at the buy orders filling the screen, I smiled bitterly.
At the fact that my tweet had not had the slightest impact on the market.
The only things that could stop this trend were probably a physical shock or a real disaster.
No matter how harsh my warnings, I wouldn't be able to reverse this huge upward trend.
However, even as the market ignored my words, the comments section was getting even hotter.
Then, suddenly.
They began to appear.
└ You made some money off Corona once, so now you think everything's easy, huh? ㅋㅋ
└ Just get lost. You're ruining the mood.
└ Go play in the vaccine market. How dare you come here and curse us? What does a three-year veteran of the industry know?
└ Even Trump and Putin would be better than you, right?
└ A bitch who can't even read a chart.
On Twitter, there is a strong tendency to be polite even when leaving malicious comments.
This is because Twitter has a structure that makes users feel more responsible by using their real names or nicknames.
But the malicious comments pouring in without stopping now had the distinctive color of 4chan.
A direct and sarcastic way of speaking.
└ You should short your life. There's nothing more certain than that. Your life, shorting at a historical low, is now obvious (laughs).
Sure enough.
└ It's called a warning, but isn't it just a trick to make people anxious and raise your portfolio profits?
└ That's right. This bastard is just putting on a show. It's an obvious trick to shake the market by making a lot of noise among themselves. As if we've only been fooled once or twice. I think this bastard needs some education?
└ I wonder if he'll come to his senses if his personal information gets properly exposed.
└ Let's expose him ㅋㅋㅋ
They're doing what they used to do, because old habits die hard.
So I thought the coordinates had been taken on 4chan, but it wasn't.
Reddit.
It was confirmed that most of the traffic came from WallStreetBets, a subreddit related to investment.
A Reddit post targeting my tweet is currently the hottest post.
[ u/ RichStone_Dad
Hyun-woo Na of AlphaMind is disrupting our crude oil futures market.
I'm also buying crude oil futures.
All signs point to a recovery in the crude oil futures market. As it is a historical low, a huge bull run is expected.
This may be the last chance to escape poverty.
But as always.
The greedy wolves of Wall Street are eager to rip us off. Look at this.
https://twitter.com/AlphaMind_1999
AlphaMind may be unfamiliar, but you've probably heard the name HyunWoo at least once.
He's a young star on Wall Street who hit the Jackpot by predicting Corona. Recently, he's been creating a boom in the vaccine market.
And he's quickly falling into corruption.
He's already learning bad things from his seniors and disrupting the market.
He has a strategy to rip us off.
The greed of Wall Street…
I'm sick of it.
What do you guys think? ]
Reddit, which I had accessed after a long time, was very different from what I remembered.
The community had grown larger and more active.
I found that very interesting.
Corona was having an impact here as well.
On Reddit, each subreddit clearly defines a topic, and users are encouraged to discuss only topics that fit that topic.
As a result, the quality of discussions is improved and users can easily find the information they need.
In times of economic pressure due to a pandemic like now, there is bound to be a greater tendency to seek more reliable information, so Reddit, a platform that meets that need, is experiencing remarkable growth.
Even the trolls who used to enjoy brutally harassing people by exposing their personal information on 4chan have no choice but to migrate to Reddit.
Reddit is absorbing a large number of Internet users.
'Why not.'
It was only natural that I was amazed at how much Reddit's corporate value would explode in the future.
"Ah!"
If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known, but it's too bad to just pass it by after seeing it.
Reddit, this guy is going to go big too.
Anyway, AlphaMind is still just a small hedge fund.
Still, the advantage of being called an institution is that you can seek investment in unlisted companies like Reddit.
The types of public data that can be accessed and the scope of contacts have become incomparably more diverse and wider than before.
Crack─
『 • Reddit: Series D (2019)
• Investors – Tencent, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, Quiet Capital, VY Capital, and celebrities such as Snoop Dogg.
• Investment size: $300 million 』
With this investment round last year, Reddit was valued at $3 billion.
'A corporate value of $3 billion?'
But after the pandemic hit, the world changed in an instant.
All assets were torn apart in the plague, and Reddit was no exception.
To be exact.
The views of investors who valued Reddit at $3 billion last year have no choice but to change completely now.
So what about Sequoia Capital?
Indeed, they were also investing in Reddit.
Due to the nature of venture capital, they are more sensitive to cash flow than other industries.
If any company in the investment portfolio cannot withstand the waves of the pandemic, it will clearly affect Sequoia's funding.
At this point, someone steps back.
But someone finds an opportunity.
So I have to move faster than them.
* * *
Menlo Park, the heart of Silicon Valley.
Sequoia Capital's headquarters exuded a calm presence.
This is where Silicon Valley has flourished.
Apple, Google, YouTube, PayPal, and Instagram.
It was here that made their first steps possible.
Apple's initial investment decision opened the era of Silicon Valley.
The investment in Google changed the world's search habits.
YouTube revolutionized the way content is consumed.
It also opened the era of electronic payments with PayPal and completely changed the landscape of social media through Instagram.
Last year, they chose Reddit.
As they have always done, they have always been preparing for the future in the heart of Silicon Valley.
The person who led the Reddit investment last year was Claire Song, a partner at Sequoia. She is of Korean descent like me.
When I looked into it, she was a standout figure in Silicon Valley's complex web of interests.
There were even rumors that she was at odds with the PayPal Mafia.
I opened the door to the headquarters conference room with a bit of tension and anticipation.
A quiet space came into view at once.
She was reviewing documents on one side of the desk, stopped her hand, and looked up.
Dressed in a neat blazer, she exuded a neat yet sharp image. Her expression was unwavering.
And she was sophisticatedly beautiful.
According to confirmed information, she was just over her mid-thirties, but that was just a number.
"Hyun-woo, welcome."
From pronunciation to expression, it's perfect Korean.
"Nice to meet you."
When I replied in Korean as well, her eyes softened. I couldn't help but know what she was feeling.
A meeting in Korean at Sequoia Capital, the headquarters of Silicon Valley's best venture capital firm.
This moment was also special to me.
The words that came out of her mouth as soon as I sat down were even more special.
"Let's get straight to the point without wasting time. We at Sequoia are willing to transfer our Reddit stake to AlphaMind. But there's a condition."
A condition.
Several scenarios were already running through my head.
"I want to be in Hyun-woo's fund."