An Investor Who Sees The Future

Hedge fund managers discussed detailed strategies for half a day.

Although they talked with smiles on their faces, each had their own calculations in their heads. There is no good or evil in money, and there are no allies or enemies.

They unite in the face of profit, but when the situation changes, they turn their backs as if nothing had happened.

What Carl Singer had to do was to convince them that this was an opportunity to make money. To persuade investors seasoned in the market, one action is needed more than a hundred words.

Everyone lies. But no one lies with money on the line.

Albert Management was scheduled to invest in the earliest and riskiest assets. In this case, they would take the biggest risk, but at the same time, they could earn the most profit.

Carl Singer told them.

"Albert Management will take the lead. All you have to do is follow."

Carl Singer stood by the window and looked down. He could see cars and people bustling between the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

Although he had risen to a position that everyone would look up to, he was still in a position of looking up from below.

The power in the market belongs not to the person who manages the capital, but to the person who has the capital.

No matter how good an investment opportunity is, it's useless if you don't have money. Huge capital is a powerful force in itself. Money makes everything possible.

Who would not feel awe at the sight of a mountain of gold?

Before founding Albert Management, he was just a lawyer at a law firm. He learned about them while handling a lawsuit related to a financial company.

They provided him with huge funds to help him create a hedge fund.

They had the power to move the market. No, they were the market. Just by investing according to the information they provided, he could earn a huge profit.

If this venture succeeds, he will break free from being a chess piece that moves according to the master's will and gain the power to move the world.

He knew what kind of proposal Rothschild had made to Kang Jin-hoo.

Some people can get what others can't, even with a lifetime of effort, so easily.

'If only I could rise above it...'

Carl Singer clenched his fist tightly.

***

A large-scale anti-China protest broke out in Hong Kong.

The trigger was China. The Chinese financial authorities pointed to financial companies in Hong Kong as the main culprits of short-selling and announced that they would summon a large number of Hong Kong businesspeople and financiers to the mainland for investigation.

In a word, their logic was that Hong Kong's speculative forces were ruining the Chinese economy, and it was, in fact, shifting the responsibility for the economic failure to Hong Kong.

Hong Kongers reacted fiercely to this.

Even after its return to China, Hong Kong was guaranteed autonomy for 50 years and had exercised its own judicial power.

But if China could summon Hong Kongers to the mainland whenever it needed to, there would be no law preventing them from summoning politicians or human rights activists that the Communist Party considered a thorn in their side.

The initial number of protesters was a whopping 1 million, meaning one in seven Hong Kong citizens participated in the protest. As the scale of the protest grew over time, the surprised Chinese and Hong Kong governments temporarily withdrew the summons policy.

But the once-boiling public sentiment showed no signs of calming down. The suppression and control of the Chinese Communist Party that had been imposed on Hong Kong until now exploded with this incident.

The protest in Hong Kong now spread to an anti-China movement and a Hong Kong democratization movement. As the one-China principle showed signs of wavering, China also could not back down.

Premier Bo Xiaoyu said in a strong tone.

"No one should shake the one-China principle."

China moved a large number of People's Liberation Army troops to Shenzhen, which is adjacent to Hong Kong. This was tantamount to a warning that they could deploy the PLA to suppress the protesters in an emergency.

The whole world watched with concern, wondering if a second Tiananmen Square incident would occur in Hong Kong.

***

Saemangeum was left abandoned like an eyesore, with half-built buildings.

Stock prices fell endlessly, companies went bankrupt, and people lost their jobs. Houses and buildings were turned over to banks, and banks were turned over to speculative capital.

A dispute broke out between Ireland and the UK over the construction of a border wall, and terrorist attacks occurred at a shopping mall and a football stadium in Northern Ireland. Greece rejected the austerity plan and declared its withdrawal from the EU, and other EU countries experiencing economic crises also joined in.

In countries that had lost their welfare and security capabilities due to national bankruptcy, a procession of people escaping continued. As refugees crossed the border, anti-refugee protests and hate crimes spread in each region.

Riots and looting occurred along with conflicts that resembled civil wars in various parts of the world.

China eventually deployed the People's Liberation Army to forcibly suppress the protests in Hong Kong. With the sound of gunshots, people fell, bleeding. Screams and cries erupted from all sides.

I was standing in the middle of it all.

War is not the only thing that takes away lives. A financial crisis can destroy people's daily lives at any time.

While everyone was suffering, someone was making a huge profit. Those with capital bought up stocks and real estate that had become cheap and acquired state-owned enterprises and infrastructure.

The poor became poorer, and the rich became richer. The poor countries became poorer, and the rich countries became richer.

Grace Rothschild looked at me and said.

"Join us. You can have everything in the world."

At that moment, I woke up from my dream.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Ellie's expression. She was looking at me with a surprised expression.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm okay."

My forehead was covered in a cold sweat, and a chill ran down my spine.

Ellie wiped the sweat from my forehead with her hand.

"What kind of dream did you have to be so startled?"

I recalled the scenes I had seen in my dream. Everything was as vivid as if I had seen it with my own eyes.

Was this just a dream, or was it the future that would happen?

This was the first time I had had such a dream since the Big One. Although I had made all sorts of efforts, the Big One had eventually happened.

So, is this also something that can't be stopped even if I know about it, just like a natural disaster?

I shook my head.

"It was just a nightmare."

"It's probably because you've been under too much stress lately."

I lay down again, but sleep did not come.

Ellie seemed to be the same, and she asked me.

"Do you want a beer?"

I nodded.

"That would be nice."

We went down to the first floor and sat facing each other at the wine bar in the kitchen. I handed her a beer I had taken out of the refrigerator.

We clinked our cans. As the cold beer went down my throat, I felt like I was coming to my senses.

It occurred to me that it had been a long time since we had had a drink together. These days, we were so busy with each other that we didn't have much time to talk face to face like this.

"How's the company these days?"

"The atmosphere is indescribable. Everyone comes to work and endures the day, worrying about how much loss they will incur. And we're flooded with customer complaint calls every day."

Basically, IBs take a long position. One might think they could just sell off all their assets and bet short, but that's only possible for hedge funds that have freedom of operation.

The ratio of derivative investments for securities firms cannot exceed a certain level. In the first place, there aren't enough derivatives in the market to buy that much.

When the market is rising, it's possible for everyone to make money. But when the market is falling, someone must lose money for someone else to make money.

No matter how well you manage it, the most you can do is reduce your losses.

Thanks to our preparations in advance, Golden Gate's losses were relatively small compared to other IBs. Domestic securities firms were getting absolutely hammered right now.

The China, India, and ASEAN funds and Brazilian bonds that they had been selling so diligently had been cut in half, and even in thirds and fourths.

"I've really never seen the market fall this much."

Ellie had joined Golden Gate after the financial crisis.

Although the market had shaken for a while, this was probably the first time she had experienced such a decline.

I nodded.

"Countries like Korea are just swept away by the flow of the global economy."

No matter how much it is the 11th largest economy in the world, its share of the global economy is only about 2 percent. In addition, South Korea's ratio of exports and imports to its domestic market is overwhelmingly large.

It's a structure where it's bound to take the full impact when the global economy shakes. As its economic dependence on China is large, the crisis in China was naturally transmitted to South Korea.

The KOSPI index, which had broken through 3,000, fell below 2,500 shortly after, and now even 2,000 is being threatened.

As buying sentiment disappeared, the market wavered greatly even with small negative news, and the exchange rate jumped to 1,250 won.

Even this could be considered a great defense. The situation in other countries right now is indescribable.

China has been pursuing its One Belt, One Road strategy and has invested heavily in emerging countries in Asia and Africa where US influence is relatively weak. ASEAN countries, which depended on China for investment and exports, began to show signs of collapsing one by one, which was another piece of bad news for South Korea.

External factors are a problem, but so are internal factors. The most serious is the household debt, which amounts to 1,600 trillion won.

South Korea's household debt was the highest in the world relative to its GDP.

The reason it had increased so crazily was because interest rates were low and real estate prices had skyrocketed. Since interest rates were low, people borrowed money to buy houses, and as everyone was buying houses, house prices continued to rise, and to buy the houses with risen prices, they borrowed more money...

But when interest rates suddenly rose, the opposite situation occurred.

As interest payments nearly doubled in a few months, homeowners who could not bear the interest burden tried to sell their houses to pay off their debts. But in a situation where interest rates were continuing to rise, no one was willing to borrow money to buy a house, and house prices continued to fall.

It's not yet at the stage to talk about bank insolvency, but if interest rates were to rise further from here, there is a possibility that the real estate bubble will collapse and, like Japan, it will fall into a long-term recession.

Ellie said, drinking her beer.

"I talked to my mother today."

"Are your parents okay?"

"Of course. But I'm a little worried. There was a death yesterday."

Ellie tried to look nonchalant, but her eyes were full of anxiety.

Far from listening to the citizens' demands, the Hong Kong government suppressed the protests with a heavy hand. As clashes between protesters and the Hong Kong police continued, various parts of the city's system were paralyzed.

Roads were controlled, subways stopped, and public offices closed. And the People's Liberation Army held drills in Shenzhen as if to show off.

Hong Kong is Ellie's hometown.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her that the People's Liberation Army might be deployed to trample the protesters.

I recalled something from long ago.

"A long time ago, when I returned to school, I played a game with a junior at a drinking party."

"I know. Was it the CEO of Meister Pizza?"

"That's right."

The rules were simple. The side that accumulated more cash within a set time won.

Ellie chuckled.

"He picked the wrong person. How dare he brag about money to you, Jin-hoo."

"Looking back, it was a childish thing to do."

But it occurred to me that the current situation might be similar to that time.

In the market, the side with more money is absolutely advantageous. To prevent a crisis, you need more money than your opponent.

In the end, it's a battle of who can accumulate more money.

The capital that Rothschild can mobilize is definitely more than mine. Besides, other speculative capitals were already moving with them.

This was one huge flow.

No matter how much I am the richest man in the world, I cannot fight against the entire market. The most I could do was to hold on so as not to be swept away by that flow.

A sense of powerlessness enveloped my whole body.

What on earth should I do?

Is there no other way than to sit still and watch the global economy collapse while taking losses, or to join hands with Rothschild and invest in the crisis?

At that moment, something flashed before my eyes.

What on earth is this...?

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