Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Black-Haired Investor Awakened as a Superhuman, Episode 042
==========
"Crazy..."
I muttered softly, unable to tear my gaze from the screen.
Even though I had anticipated it.
The shock of it actually happening was another matter entirely.
A situation I had simulated hundreds of times in my head. The spectacle unfolding before my eyes was truly overwhelming.
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached $0
Zero dollars. Zero!
Crude oil was worth less than shit.
'At least shit can be used as fertilizer.'
At this moment, crude oil had completely lost its value.
The lifeline that had driven human civilization since the Industrial Revolution had now become a burden that no one wanted.
The order book was already a chaotic mess with the flood of sell orders.
Beneath it, the thinning traces of buy orders could no longer be called defense.
Even those who had gleefully bought at $10, calling it a historic low, were now fleeing, willing to have their arms and legs cut off.
They were aghast at their own decision to buy at $10.
[ AlphaHelp (Non-profit Welfare Foundation)
• Investment Funds: $10 million
• Investment Scale: $30 million
(3x Leverage)
• Held Item: WTI APR20 15P
• Contract Quantity: 50,000 contracts
• Market Price: $0
• Purchase Price: $0.2
• Current Price: $15
• Valuation Amount: $750,000,000
• Profit/Loss: +$740,000,000
• Return on Investment: 7,400% ]
Despite the enormous profit before my eyes, I felt no joy.
The volume that had been worth only ten million dollars had now become a volume worth 750 million dollars.
I needed to sell this, but the current market situation was not favorable.
There were only sellers, no buyers.
Even a small sell-off would send the price plummeting further.
This moment was what people meant when they said a situation unprecedented in human history.
Crude oil prices going negative.
It was becoming a reality before my eyes.
But even if oil prices plunged into negative territory, only the profit numbers on the screen would rise.
Turning all of that into real money would be a difficult task.
Negative.
It meant getting paid to buy crude oil.
Conversely, it meant having to pay to sell crude oil, treating it like nuclear waste.
Who could have imagined it?
'Crude oil is on par with nuclear waste... garbage that no one wants even if you give it away...'
Perhaps at this moment, crude oil was even worse than nuclear waste.
So, if the price fell further from zero dollars into negative territory.
Then there might be no one left to take it at all.
It was certified garbage, who would buy it?
Trading would be suspended, almost completely disappearing. The profits shown on the screen would be nothing more than pie in the sky.
And when the market stabilized again and liquidity returned enough to dispose of the volume.
The profit would be much smaller than it was now.
I had to dispose of it now before I regretted it later!
I had expected there to be buyers coming in, seeing zero dollars as an opportunity, but waiting for them could be too late.
Just as I raised my hand to the mouse, ready to sell, that's when it happened.
A large number suddenly appeared in the order book.
A whopping $1 billion!
'They're here!'
I had been waiting for this.
My eyes widened in an instant.
A new big player, a buyer, had bet on zero dollars.
Now I could dump all my volume on them.
Even if I dumped it all at once, without slippage, the profit of over 700 million would go directly into my account.
But I took my hand off the mouse. With a new buyer appearing with a large sum of money, there was no need to sell hastily.
If a force could fill one slot in the order book with $1 billion, then that $1 billion wouldn't be the end of it.
For the cornered jackals, this was an opportunity.
In a situation where they absolutely had to sell, the appearance of a new buyer was a glimmer of hope.
Inevitably, they began to pour their volume onto the new buyer.
The historical low of $10 was the first battle.
The $5 mark, a further 50% drop from there, was the second battle.
And now, the third battle was unfolding at the zero-dollar mark.
In the midst of the fierce fight.
I watched the will of the buyer.
Even as the price began to fall into negative territory, hands that had never appeared before began to buy.
It was highly likely that this was the new buyer.
'They must be very surprised, right?'
They must have thought that if they stepped in to support the zero-dollar mark with a lot of money, the selling pressure would stop.
But the people who currently held crude oil futures were crazy.
Of course.
How many people came into this market because they really wanted to buy oil?
The current options market had become a speculative arena for making a big profit through price differences.
In their case, if they didn't sell now, they would have actual oil drums piling up in their front yards.
That's why they were crazy, unable to sell.
The new buyer who had jumped into that madness was, in my eyes, a sucker.
So, I could confidently think.
'That rich sucker and his sucker friends will take my volume.'
At a lower, more ripe price.
* * *
[Price Alert] WTI: Broke Below $0
The last three minutes must have felt like three years to that sucker.
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$1
The zero-dollar mark failed to hold for even three minutes and was breached.
The current time is 2:05 PM.
The regular session ends at 2:30 PM, leaving only 25 minutes.
Anyone still holding a futures position had to sell within the remaining 25 minutes.
But those who remained until now were the ones who couldn't sell at $10, at $5, or even at zero dollars.
Let me reiterate, futures contracts are not about buying and selling physical crude oil.
It's about buying and selling 'contracts' to trade crude oil, and once a contract is made, there is an obligation to fulfill it.
So, if they couldn't sell because of the vain hope that the price would recover, or if they couldn't because there was no one to take it—
Actual oil drums would arrive at their doorstep.
Of course, there is no service that kindly delivers them to your door.
That's all cost.
Usually, they are transported to storage facilities like Cushing.
But now, all the storage facilities on land are full, and oil tankers are simply docked at the port.
The daily charter rate alone is over $200,000.
Assuming that a typical oil tanker carries 2 million barrels.
If I were to take on the current volume of 50 million barrels with a call position instead of a put, I would have to pay $5 million per day for the charter of 25 tankers...
A situation I didn't even want to think about would unfold.
Until when?
Every day, $5 million in charter fees until I personally secured storage space.
Eventually, I would have to wait for the Cushing storage to become available.
This meant waiting for the recovery of oil demand to begin and for OPEC's production cut decision to actually be implemented.
In that case, I would have to pay the charter fee every day until at least July.
The total calculated charter fee cost would be $500 million.
It was a disastrous failure, and in most cases, it meant bankruptcy.
Of course, this calculation was not about me.
Those who couldn't sell for whatever reason.
And the near future of the sucker and his sucker friends who were still receiving the volume.
They would have to dispose of the volume they were receiving before the expiration date, but who could take that much volume?
'They can only hope that a new sucker, bigger and more blinded by greed than themselves, will appear.'
In any case, the zero-dollar mark that they wanted to protect had been broken.
Now, they would have to continue to support additional purchases from below, luring the new suckers they desired with the illusion that the market would recover.
But that wouldn't go as planned.
Because they wouldn't have factored me into their calculations before a new sucker, bigger than them, appeared.
A whopping 25 oil tankers, 50 million barrels worth of volume.
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$5
[ AlphaHelp (Non-profit Welfare Foundation)
• Investment Funds: $10 million
• Investment Scale: $30 million
(3x Leverage)
• Held Item: WTI APR20 15P
• Contract Quantity: 50,000 contracts
• Market Price: -$5
• Purchase Price: $0.2
• Current Price: $20
• Valuation Amount: $1,000,000,000
• Profit/Loss: +$990,000,000
• Return on Investment: 9,900% ]
1 billion.
It had become a volume worth $1 billion.
The sucker and his sucker friends, they wouldn't have factored this enormous nuclear waste that I held into their plans from the start.
'They must think it will end soon. That's why they keep buying.'
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$8
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$9
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$10
[ • Valuation Amount: $1,240,000,000
• Profit/Loss: +$1,230,000,000
• Return on Investment: 12,300% ]
The nuclear waste about to be dumped on that sucker group had swelled to $1.24 billion.
I should start preparing to dump it soon. Before they finally give up and run away.
Click!―
[Transaction Completed] WTI APR20 15P: Sale of 10,000 contracts successfully completed.
I throw it out tentatively.
[Transaction Completed] WTI APR20 15P: Sale of 10,000 contracts successfully completed.
The moment I lightly dumped a portion of my volume.
[Price Alert] WTI: Broke Below -$10
…
[Price Alert] WTI: Reached -$13
The price plummeted further, and the account's return on investment soared even higher.
I had enough volume.
And now, the supporting force, that is, liquidity, had also entered.
From this moment on, I could manipulate the market price with the volume I held.
I could dump the volume and deliberately lower the price even further.
Then the return on my position would rise even more dramatically.
Even though there were only about 20 minutes left, no one could deny it at this moment.
In the crude oil futures options market...
I was now a 'whale'.