Translator: Khan

  Editor: RED

  I put my hand on the popcorn.

  In front of me, Leonardo DiCaprio had a fiery tongue. “Poverty is never noble! I’ve lived as a rich man and as poor man, and if someone asks me to choose between them, I’ll always choose the rich. At least then, when I am in trouble, I can face the problem with at least a $2,000 suit in my limousine and a $40,000 watch.”


  I brought the coke to my mouth. Sweet cola hit my throat with thrilling carbonic acid.

  “Are you finding it hard to live on because you’re behind in the loan on your car? Then call the customer and sell the stock. Does the landlord want you to leave? That’s great. Pick up the phone and dial it. Does your girlfriend ignore you as a loser? Great! Then turn the dial. All the problems are solved with money!”


  The movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio was speaking was Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” This was a story about a trickster on Wall Street who became a huge rich man and then collapsed. I’d seen it before, but I suddenly thought about it and rehashed it again when I decided to set up an investment company in earnest this time.

  Leonardo DiCaprio shouted loudly, holding a microphone in his hand. “Let’s hit an out-of-the-park homer with this stock!”


  I shook my head with a big chew of popcorn. ‘Ch…… this speech scene… amazing.’


  I pressed back on the remote control. The movie ran backwards and returned to where Leonardo gave his speech again. The beam project behind me had once again vividly recreated the famous scene.

  “Poverty is never noble!”


  The place I was watching the movie was one of the rooms inside my studio. I chose this 165 square-meter studio because of the scenery outside, but it was too big for me, who had lived only in a six square-meter studio since I had entered college. Even if I did more shopping and filled it up with furniture, there was a room left.

  So I filled one of the spare rooms with a sofa, beam projector, and speakers, and made it a private theater. It cost me about $20,000 to decorate like this, but if I was listening to vivid pictures and sounds, I didn’t think it was a waste of money.

  I put my hand to the popcorn once again. I had bought the popcorn and cola at the movie theater in Gangnam Station, three minutes away. I bought only popcorn and coke without watching the movie. Still, I was probably not a bad customer because I boosted their sales. By the way, I had been watching a movie for a long time.

  Wi-ying. The cell phone alarm went off. 8:50 p.m.

  ‘Oh, is it that time already?’


  I stopped the movie and came to the front of the computer. I waited for five minutes and received the emails.

  [P. 12 Hours After]

  [P. 12 Days After]

  Right now it was Sunday evening. 12 Hours After was not very useful, but 12 Days After was meaningful. If I knew what was going to happen in twelve days, I would buy shares sometime next week. The sad thing was that I’d been in a shambles for nothing. Twice a day, there were no fish on the line.

  ‘Let me have a good fish today…’


  I had really good news in the Economy category of 12 Days After.

  [A contract of $865,400,000 exports of Essen Bio to German Pharmaceuticals]

  ‘Essen Bio?’


  The important thing here was whether or not this company was listed. No matter how good it might be, there was nothing I could do if it was not listed. I immediately typed ‘Essen Bio’ into the search box.

  ‘There it is!’


  Essen Bio was a pharmaceutical company with the market capital of one billion listed on the KOSPI. I read the article then.

  [Essen Bio made an announcement on the fourteenth that it has signed an agreement with German drug-maker Leven Science to export its VL360 drug, an antibody drug, for $865,400,000. Essen Bio will receive $30,000,000 in contract fees, $20,000,000 in research fees, and $815,400,000 in technical fees for each step.]

  ‘A contract worth $865,400,000 from a company with a total of one billion dollars’ market capital.’


  It was a big fish. I read down on the article. Unfortunately, there was no talk of the stock price rising or falling. It was okay, though. This was a good enough price to go over the ceiling.

  ‘All right, I’ll have to buy Essen Bio all week. The official announcement date is the fourteenth.’


  The fourteenth was next Thursday. It was Friday, exactly twelve days from today. Just as 12 Hours After, in which there was a variety of news from now to twelve hours later, there seemed to be news from today to up to twelve days from now in the news of 12 Days After. I put ‘Essen Bio’ on top of my watch list. The amount of money I had now was about $8,900,000. A company with a total of one billion dollars’ market capital was the perfect prey.

  ———————–


  The next day, I split the time into small pieces while the stock market was open and bought Essen Bio in the market. At 9 a.m., I bought $400,000 and played games. Then I bought again for $400,000 at 11 a.m. During the lunchtime, I put another $400,000 at 1 p.m., $400,000 at 3 p.m. reading comic books and $400,000 at the close. The total was $2,000,000 through five buy orders.

  It was better to buy shares after reading the news in 12 Days After than buying them after watching the news of 12 Hours After, as I could buy shares without raising prices as quickly as before. Essen Bio even fell today, even though I bought $2,000,000 worth.

  [Essen Bio $13.40 –0.74%]

  My average loss was about 2%. The loss today alone reached $40,000, but I was fine since it was a stock that was going to climb anyway.

  ‘I’d rather buy a good stock at a lower price. Sell more, you guys.’


  Looking at today’s trading trends, foreign investors bought it, but it was sold by institutional investors. The pension funds, which played with the people’s money, had a massive sell-off today.

  ‘I think the pension fund operators won’t get this information first. Even if it’s a pension fund, it’s only predicting the future with the information they have, not trading it with information from the future.’


  Tuesday, I bought the same $2,000,000. By the way, the stock price continued to fluctuate. Foreigners selling stocks in bulk today meant my net loss as of today was over $100,000.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right now.’


  I went on with it, though. It would be up next Friday at the latest. I made the same purchase on Wednesday. By the way, the stock price fell again. -3%. I lost $200,000 today alone. I was a little nervous at this point.

  ‘What…… isn’t there going to be a lot of bad news in a week? The contract notice will be released on Thursday.’


  I thought it was good to have time, but in 12 Days After, the news didn’t have this problem. In 12 Hours After, there was no time for other variables since time was urgent. So, knowing the results that day I could make a profit with little risk. The news in 12 Days After could be a little dangerous. I didn’t know what was going to happen between the twelve days.

  ‘Well…… I’m going to keep this in mind. I was going to buy splitting it up as much as I could, and then I might get caught up in some unexpected bad news.’


  It was $300,000 out of $8,900,000. It was okay because I did not lose a lot yet, but I should be a little careful about buying them all this week.

  ‘Is it because there’s still no one who’s quick on the information?’


  I logged on to the chat room on ‘Garden Envy’ after a long time. I wanted to know what was going on here. When I entered the chat room, the first thing I saw was a notice.

  Master T

  – We won’t have a meeting this week. Stay focused on your work and see you next week.

  – This week, there is free debate, not a discussion topic.

  This meeting did not seem to be held every week. I didn’t mean to go back to the strange gathering, anyway. I saw the number of people in the room, eighty-eight. It was more than it used to be. Like section chief Kim Hye-sook, who invited me there, it seemed like there were more people who had been asked by that Master T, Director Tak Joon-gi.

  ‘It’s…… it’s weird.’ I looked at the chat window, thinking like that.

  Dr. J.

  – I think there will be good news for Yugil Pharmaceuticals around next Wednesday. Buy it now.

  Luminous

  – Dr. J., what’s the good news?

  Dr. J.

  – New drug trials in the U.S. It is said that the second phase clinical trials will be good.

  Triple K

  – Well, doesn’t it take a long time to go on sale, even if the second phase is successful?

  Sunnyside Up

  – But the stock price will jump. Thank you for the good information. I’m going in too.

  In this chat room, there were a lot of bio-pharmaceuticals stories. I didn’t know if it was because there were many doctors or because the pharmaceutical bio stocks were hot. I chatted for the first time, looking at the chat window.

  Duros

  – Members, do you happen to know Essen Bio? Do you have any good news or bad news?

  The doctors stuck to my chat.

  Dr. J.

  – That is where they develop cures for autoimmune diseases. They exported technology to China last year, and don’t have much these days.

  They had a story about what they did just by seeing the name. It was as expected.

  Dr. Lee Sang-han

  – That contract made good sales last year. It’s a tech company, but I think there is a little bubble on it right now. If it’ were about 10 percent cheaper than now, I would buy it.

  I’d already bought $6,000,000. If it was ten percent cheaper, I would lose $600,000. It was a dizzying amount.

  Stock Specialist

  – I bought it last year when it hit the jackpot. I’ve been holding it for half a year. It’s not fun. After selling it with a loss, I’m going to buy something else.

  ‘I see.’


  The doctors did not seem to know that there was such a contract. But this big announcement was hard to know unless they were an insider. Having grasped the mood, I decided not to buy more shares right away, but watched the stock price a little more.

  —


  Thursday. Stocks fluctuated between ups and downs before ending in a 0% combination. On Friday, it rose +3%. As I was holding $6,000,000 worth of shares, I recovered about $200,000.

  ‘Was it just a breeze that the stock price fell the last time?’


  I thought so. The next Monday, I bought an additional $2,000,000. The stock price ended in the +1% range.

  Tuesday, I used my credit to buy $2,000,000 more. The stock price was +1%. There was no sign of fluctuation. I recovered all the losses today. The last 4$ loss seemed to have been a simple supply and demand problem.

  Wednesday. In one more day, there would be good news. There was no further delay.

  I used my credit and bought an additional $6,000,000. Total purchases were now $16,000,000 Perhaps because of my buying spree, the stock price rose to +4%. A 4% increase would be normal. It was a little difficult to say if the information was spreading.

  ‘As I know, some of the major shareholders buy and sell stocks under borrowed-name accounts if there is good news.’ But at this company, there would be decent news. ‘Even sooner than I…… they could have bought it twelve days ago.’


  Come to think of it, it was more likely. A big deal like this would have made sense twelve days ago…


  ——


  Eventually, it became the Thursday of fate. The stock price was just like that on Thursday. It got down and climbed up, and then around 11 am, Essen Bio reached the upper limit price as the announcement was up.

  [An export contract of $865,400,000 of Essen Bio with German Pharmaceuticals]

  I looked at my account with a total of +$5,000,000 printed on it and thought. ‘It’s easy. It’s easy.’


  But suddenly, I was curious about the reaction of the people at Garden Envy. I dropped by the chat room.

  Dr. J.

  – Wow. Essen Bio reached the upper limit price. I think I saw it in this chat room a while ago.

  Idios

  – Yeah, I think I saw it.

  Dr. Lee Sang-han

  – I’m looking up the chat window. It’s the stock that Duros mentioned.

  Sure enough, there was someone who was referring to me. I roughly put it around.

  Duros

  – No, I just bought a little, $100,000, because the chart looked good. I should have bought it more. Idios, did you have any information?

  Idios

  – If you bought $100,000, you’ll get plus thirty thousand today. Good.

  Dr. Lee Sang-han

  – You’re a chart specialist! You’re amazing……

  ‘I actually bought $16,000,000…’


  I didn’t say any more. I didn’t want to get noticed for anything.

  ——


  Friday, the next day, Essen Bio started with 27% early in the market, but was up 30% in a minute, hitting the ceiling on it. Putting the two days together, I made nearly $10,000,000. I looked at it and thought. ‘At least the $10,000,000 unit is easy to make.’