The Trickle-Down Play
[Hyunbo Computer]
The next morning, Class 3 of the second year at Sunjin High School.
"Hey, did you do the homework? Let me copy it."
"Anyone with a spare gym uniform! We have PE today, lend me one!"
"Ugh, I'm starving. I'm hitting the school store."
It was a regular market in its own right. Before morning homeroom even began, the classroom was thick with the noise and heat radiating off a pack of adolescent boys bursting with energy. To my ears, though, it was nothing but white noise, a low, meaningless hum. I rested my chin on my hand and stared out the window, lost in thought.
Mid-September...
The night before, I'd gone home and combed through every newspaper and news broadcast I could find. Autumn, 2003. If my memory served, around September 12th — right as the Chuseok holiday began — the Korean peninsula would be slammed by a disaster of historic proportions.
Typhoon Maemi was coming. A super typhoon strong enough to bend the giant cranes of Busan Port like straw and flatten coastal cities.
There'll be casualties and massive property damage — tragic, of course. But the stock market is going to react very differently.
If we quietly accumulated the right related stocks in advance, the moment the typhoon passed, the recovery theme would send those prices soaring. The problem was timing.
There's still half a month to go.
The competition lasted a month. We couldn't just sit around sucking our thumbs for two weeks. Han Jae-yi's portfolio would keep the account alive, but to actually win, I needed a bridge to fill that gap — something to pump up our returns until the typhoon arrived.
There was definitely something...
The rebound after the Sunkwang accounting fraud scandal? The card company merger issue? The big events came back to me one by one, but nothing with enough destructive power to decide a high school competition in a short window. My mind was a tangled ball of string.
"Seon-woo."
Just then, someone tapped on my desk. I turned to find Min-jae, the class president, wearing his usual friendly smile.
"Oh, hey Min-jae. Morning."
"You look pretty deep in thought. Is it that assignment Jae-yi gave you yesterday?"
Min-jae asked, eyes gleaming. I swallowed a dry laugh.
This guy. I've already got enough on my plate, and he's sharp as a tack.
Pretending not to notice, yet somehow landing a subtle jab anyway. I feigned nonchalance and deflected.
"Well, yeah, something like that. What about you? Did yours?"
"Me? Obviously."
Min-jae slapped his bag with a flourish.
"Last night I skipped my academy homework and did this instead. I stayed up all night reading financial statements and digging through the news, and wow... it's there. I found a stock even I think is good."
Life lit up his face. He looked far happier than he ever did solving math problems.
"Once I really dug into this stuff, I finally got it — what it means that numbers don't lie. The stock market really is more fun the deeper you go."
Envious. So envious.
Maybe because my body had reverted to a high schooler's, my mind felt pettier too. Here I was wracking my brain, and this model student had already found his answer. The kid's future wasn't just promising — it was plated in gold.
"So what about you, Seon-woo?"
Min-jae leaned in, asking with careful casualness.
"Did you find one?"
"Uh, yeah... I did. Of course."
I answered with practiced calm. I hadn't finalized anything yet, but with the typhoon card in my pocket, it wasn't a lie.
"Can't wait. Honestly, you kind of surprised me."
"How so?"
"Watching you, I mean."
Min-jae hesitated for a moment, then sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
"Honestly, you used to be hard to approach. You were so distant — we'd try to talk to you and you'd answer in one or two words. So I... kind of assumed you looked down on us for being beneath you."
Ah.
At Min-jae's words, I swallowed a mouthful of bitterness.
It wasn't that at all.
Back then, the label of third-generation chaebol heir and the pressure that came with it, layered over the particular gloom of adolescence, had made the whole world feel tiresome and frightening. I'd built walls out of fear that they would be the ones cursing me as an insufferable silver-spooner.
"But lately, watching you, I realized I had it all wrong. Yesterday at the club, when you were talking with Jae-yi — you were so sharp, and you made your points so cleanly..."
"......"
"And above all, you looked so certain of yourself. It was cool. Like a leader, you know?"
Min-jae was looking at me with genuine admiration. His pure, unguarded praise made something in my chest — some corner that had been jammed shut — loosen and grow warm.
Right. In this life, at the very least, I won't be misunderstood by the people around me.
"Thanks. For seeing me that way."
"It's just the truth. I'm really looking forward to your stock at today's meeting."
Min-jae was smiling and about to head back to his seat when —
"Yo! PC bang after school today?"
"Obviously. Save me a seat."
The voices of the guys chattering by the bulletin board at the back of the classroom smacked into my ears. Idle chatter I would normally have let wash right over me. But the next word struck my brain like lightning.
"What are you playing these days? Still StarCraft?"
"Are you nuts? Nobody plays StarCraft anymore. You've gotta play Kingdom 2."
"Man, that game is the real deal. I tried the open beta yesterday and the combat feel is unreal."
"Right? I pulled an all-nighter and hit level 20. When it officially launches next month, I'm paying for a subscription day one."
For a moment, my head rang.
...Ah.
Kingdom 2. The legendary MMORPG that rewrote the history of Korean gaming.
That's right — it was now.
ND Games had gone public on KOSDAQ on the back of the original Kingdom's success. But the open beta for Kingdom 2, which had begun just yesterday, had flipped the entire mood of the market.
New record for concurrent users. Reclaimed the number one spot in PC bang market share.
And then, on October 1st of the following month, with the launch of its flat-rate subscription model, the game would transcend mere success and become a full-blown social phenomenon.
The origin of pay-to-win. The romance of every middle-aged gamer.
It was the sequel to the very game that established the Kingdom-like business model in the gaming industry before I'd ever come back. Right now, the market was skeptical. The open beta was an unprecedented hit, sure — but once it went paid, the users would scatter.
But I knew better. Grown men who had already gotten a taste do not fear opening their wallets.
"Found it."
The corners of my mouth curled up before I could stop them. The surefire card that would explode our account before the typhoon ever arrived — and convert Han Jae-yi's suspicion into perfect, unwavering loyalty.
After school, the clubroom. Gathered around the central table barely a day since we'd last met, we found a pie-chart portfolio already drawn on the whiteboard in Han Jae-yi's hand.
"Alright, as promised, let's hear everyone's picks. Min-jae, you're first."
At Han Jae-yi's call, Min-jae shuffled to his feet. He looked a little worn out — apparently he really had stayed up all night preparing.
"Um... I'd like to recommend this company."
Min-jae picked up the board marker and wrote four words on the whiteboard.
"Hyunbo Computer?"
Han Jae-yi's brow creased slightly.
"You want to buy Hyunbo Computer? Do you not realize the IT bubble has burst and PC sales are scraping bottom? I told you tech stocks are dangerous."
Her point was sound. The PC market of the day was saturated; people had stopped shelling out for expensive computers. But Min-jae didn't back down.
"I know that, noona. But I've been watching the mood."
"The mood?"
"Yes. The mood in my class is insane. The second school lets out, the guys bolt for the PC bang like their lives depend on it."
Han Jae-yi snorted.
"So what? Boys going to PC bangs is nothing new."
"It's different, I'm telling you. Even the model students who never used to go are all going now. Because of Kingdom 2, the game that just opened."
Arms crossed, I marveled inwardly.
Well, look at you, Min-jae.
He wasn't just noting that a game was popular — he was observing the phenomenon itself.
"And the way kids pick their PC bangs has changed. It used to be whoever was closest, but now they compare specs. Anywhere running old machines can't even run Kingdom 2 — it lags too badly."
Min-jae swallowed and pressed on.
"So the PC bang owners are in a panic. They're losing customers to the shop next door, so they're gritting their teeth and replacing their computers whether they like it or not. Once this boom kicks off, replacement demand will explode — and doesn't that mean the computer market turns around?"
Min-jae pulled a magazine from his bag, one he'd clearly scoured and clipped from.
"Actually, when I looked into it yesterday, a computer magazine ran a piece about a major replacement cycle arriving for the first time in three years. Feels like we're sitting right at the bottom right now."
"...Hoh."
Han Jae-yi took the magazine and paged through it carefully. Her expression gradually softened.
Sharp kid.
I smiled to myself. The boy was instinctively pulling off what the legendary Wall Street investor called "discovering opportunity in everyday life."
Han Jae-yi nodded and set the magazine down.
"Fair. This isn't just gut feeling — you checked real-world reactions and even press coverage. You did your homework."
"Hehe. I pulled an all-nighter."
"Good. We've got six slots in the portfolio anyway, so carrying one hardware play isn't a bad idea. Seon-woo? You agree?"
Han Jae-yi asked for my opinion. I gave a thumbs-up without hesitation.
"Of course. After Min-jae did this much legwork, I have no reason to object. The logic is completely sound, too."
"Great. Hyunbo Computer it is. Min-jae, I'm looking at you differently now."
At Han Jae-yi's praise, Min-jae's face turned as red as a boiled sweet potato.
"Alright, then it's your turn, Seon-woo."
Han Jae-yi folded her arms and fixed me with a look.
"You did prepare that grand event stock you promised, right?"
I rose from my seat and walked to the whiteboard. Then, right beside the name Min-jae had written, I added a new one.
[Zenith Games]
"Mine branches off the same root as Min-jae's. Games are the craze in my class right now."
"So? You want to buy ND Games, the company that makes Kingdom 2?"
Han Jae-yi shook her head.
"No good. I looked at the chart — it's already run up too far on the hype. PER is over fifty. It's a bubble."
"No, senpai."
I shook my head.
"What did I say? We eat the time lag."
"Time lag?"
"Yes. ND Games is already the main character. Everyone's watching it — there's barely any pie left for us. But..."
I tapped the name I'd written on the board.
"Zenith Games?"
"Yes. A company that listed on KOSDAQ this past June. They're running Miracle, a 3D MMORPG."
"I don't know games, but I know Zenith. It went dda-sang right after its IPO. But the stock's been sort of listless lately."
"Exactly. It's resting because it has no momentum. Now — if ND Games' Kingdom 2 turns out to be a monster hit, how does the market react?"
Han Jae-yi thought for a moment, then answered.
"...It would stimulate investor appetite for the game sector as a whole."
"Exactly right. People will think: I should've bought ND Games... but it's way too expensive to buy now."
I smiled.
"And at that moment, people's eyes start hunting for the second ND Games. Same 3D MMORPG genre, but a stock that hasn't run as far. Solid earnings, but undervalued."
That was Zenith Games, plain and simple. In reality, Miracle was generating cash at a rate rivaling Kingdom itself. The market's attention had simply crowded onto the frontrunner, leaving it neglected in the shadows.
"ND Games' success will implant one belief in the market: game companies are cash machines. That money will then overflow and spread to the mid- and small-cap game stocks around it. The market calls it the trickle-down effect."
I drove the period home with a voice full of conviction.
"So when everyone's turning their heads asking who's next — I'll already be inside Zenith Games, waiting."
When I finished and turned around, a heavy silence hung over the clubroom. Han Jae-yi and Min-jae were both staring up at me, mouths agape.
"......"
"...Why are you all looking at me like that?"
At my question, Han Jae-yi burst into a disbelieving laugh.
"Ha, seriously..."
She shook her head as if she couldn't process it.
"Are you actually a high schooler? Trickle-down effects and all that — you sound like one of those economists on TV."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It is one. Your logic is so airtight it's giving me chills — I can't find a single hole in it."
Han Jae-yi picked up a marker and drew a star beside my stock.
"Done. Zenith Games, accepted. It's going into the portfolio."
Two pairs of awestruck eyes settled on me.
Ah, that look again.
I feigned nonchalance and returned to my seat. After that, I listened as Han Jae-yi walked us through her prepared defensive picks. With consumer spending still reeling from the credit card crisis, she'd chosen defensive, recession-resistant stocks. Sound logic. And just like that, all six portfolio slots were locked in.
Now everything was ready. All that remained was for the competition to begin — and for the stock prices to climb.