Chapter 24
Emily couldn’t understand and accept the situation from the beginning. Jonathan was an ordinary guy who had just graduated from a junior level, and guys like him were a dime a dozen on Wall Street. Also, there had been rumors that Jonathan’s past performances had been one of the worst.
However, in one night, this guy achieved a great success that would remain in financial history. Jonathan had earned ten billion dollars in just two months from a stake of fewer than one million dollars. No one could break this record forever.
Jonathan? The Jonathan that I knew??Emily talked about him with her coworkers whenever they had meals together, and the conclusion was always the same. There was only one way that Jonathan was able to make such a massive profit.
As Jonathan had hinted, it was placing one’s entire fortune on maximum leverage. In other words, it meant he liquidated his properties in a suicidal manner, and, unbelievably, it worked. He was the luckiest man in the world. It was a miracle that even if gods of fortune such as Tyche from Greek mythology, Ganesha from Indian mythology and all other gods in the world graced Jonathan, it still seemed impossible to be that lucky. He was like Shakespeare's monkey.
It hasn’t been long since he boasted and congratulated us for entering the major field… and now he’s doing idiotic things,?Emily thought.
She let out a sigh while looking at her briefcase. She was certain that Jonathan was drunk on his success because there were so many people on Wall Street who had overestimated temporary luck as their unbeatable capabilities. Emily knew this better than anyone else since she had done it and when she repented, her ruin was already irreversible.
Therefore, she dashed towards Jonathan when he called her. She believed that she would be able to live on Wall Street again, but…
Emily looked devastated, “Seriously, why?”
She wanted to throw her briefcase as her bag was filled with documents that proved she was stupid. As soon as the deal was made between Jonathan Investments and the banks, she would lose her job again.
If you are dying to throw money away like that, just give it to me, Emily thought.
Her final destination was right in front of her. It was the headquarters of DP Krump, one of the Big Four of the financial industry. Although it was almost time for the meeting with her dream company, she had been wandering in front of the door for thirty minutes. She had to stop Jonathan, but there was no way to contact him. She had strict orders to follow, and they even threatened her to fulfill them no matter what. She grabbed her phone which was bigger than her fist.
<Emily: I’m in front of DP Krump, but I can’t go in. My feet are not moving.>
<Emily’s colleague: Same here. Jonathan still hasn’t responded to you, right?>
<Emily: No. Do we have to do this? I feel so stupid.>
<Emily’s colleague: Bastard. I can’t believe he called us to make us do such things like this.>
<Emily: So what are you going to do?>
<Emily’s colleague: Do what? Just going to follow the orders. We cannot stop him from self-destructing. Do you think Jonathan actually sees money as money?>
<Emily: That’s it.>
<Emily’s colleague: Yea, that’s it.>
Afterwards, Emily thought calling her colleague was a mistake since it complicated things more. She entered the gigantic bank like a cow walking into the slaughterhouse. The wait was not long because she had already scheduled the meeting.
“Hello, I’m Emily from Jonathan’s Investments,” she said while handing out her name card. She was certain that the name card would become useless soon.
There was only one ordinary employee from DP Krump who had no significant authority. Emily put the documents first on the desk, and the employee kept scratching his head and stroking his nose while looking through the files.
“This is a new type of swap transaction. You’ve prepared a lot,” the employee said.
Emily agreed that the preparation took a large amount of time and effort as she was also impressed by the expertise when she first received Jonathan’s product proposal. However, trash was still trash.
The employee did his utmost to control himself and be polite, “As usual, I should tell you that I will review this, but I don’t want to waste your time. Who would accept this kind of deal?”
Emily thought it was natural even if the DP Krump employee misunderstood the problem.
“Jonathan Investments is in position B. This means that we will be responsible for the position where profits are created when Hong Kong's short-term interest rate increases over a hundred percent,” Emily said.
“What?” The employee exclaimed as he picked up the documents again.
Emily looked at his face while waiting for him to speak. It was exactly as she had expected because the employee’s facial muscles were wriggling desperately to hide his smile. He left in a rush after saying that he had no authority over this. It was probably because he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. Emily covered her face which was turning red.
A few moments later, employees of DP Krump got into the room. They were in a higher position than the first one: a team leader who could make decisions, and three subordinates. After a short greeting, they began checking the documents.
“A swap transaction like this is unprecedented. It also takes a long time to create a new product. In order to establish such a market with Hong Kong bonds…” the team leader said.
“We know,” Emily interrupted.
“But thanks to your immaculate preparations, we can save lots of time and continue from this. How much money are we thinking about this deal?” The team leader asked.
Emily shouted inwardly that she had to stop here.
“Five hundred million dollars,” she responded. That was a damn big amount of money.
Emily couldn’t see what was going on around her, but she knew that they were sneering at her at that time. From then, the employees got busy. They took more time confirming there was no hidden device in Emily’s product proposal after reading over it the first time.
There’s no such thing like that! Congratulations. You just earned a humongous pile of money while sitting there doing nothing, Emily thought as she grabbed a pen to sign the contract.
Jonathan’s parents would be the only people in the world who would refuse this worthless proposal. The employee with the highest position from DP Krump also took out a pen from his pocket. They signed, and he asked for a handshake.
“I know it would be rude to ask, but I’ve never heard of Jonathan Investments,” ?he asked.
“It was just founded a few months ago. We look forward to maintaining a reciprocal relationship with DP Krump,” Emily said.
However, they all thought that they wouldn’t see each other again.
After signing the contract, Emily rushed out from the company as if she was escaping. She couldn’t actually hear the sound, but she felt like DP Krump was still laughing at her. The worse thing was that DP Krump was not the last one she had to deal with. She had to fly to Europe to do this idiotic thing again.
***
“Conquest preparations are complete.”
Jonathan turned his chair towards me after checking the email. He had remained silent about my prediction about Hong Kong’s wild attitude from that day.
“We have achieved five billion dollars,” Jonathan said.
Bonds were done, and it was time for stocks.
“It’s our turn,” I responded.
For the first time in a while, I felt my heart beat faster. I knew the strategy that the speculators would use and the defense mechanism of the Hong Kong government against them. However, our fifty billion dollars bet had not been figured out in their calculations. Also, it was hard to predict the exact date now, so it became impossible to earn huge profits by maximizing the leverage. Everything was up to my decision.
“You’re going to bet all fifty billion dollars on the stock market crash, right?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m thinking about it,” I answered.
“If you bet fifty billion dollars, Hong Kong will crash right away. The foreign exchange market would not be destroyed. Your calculations would go in the wrong direction, Sun,” Jonathan was right.
“So we should stop at that point,” I replied.
“What point?” He questioned. f(r)eewebn(o)vel.com
“The point that?Hong Kong will hold its death grip on the foreign exchange market. If they change their plans to protect the stocks because of us, we will…” I said.
“We will be fucked up. It’ll be a battle between the Hong Kong government and us two. However, the bigger the battle, the more we’ll gain, right?” Jonathan seemed excited.
He must have made up his mind last night, and now, he spoke with determination.
“Full-scale war with Hong Kong?
Above all, I hated fighting against the opponents who would give up their limbs for a victory. If we made our move, Hong Kong would use the same strategy they applied to the hedge funds against us. They would choose to die with their enemies if needed!
“Then?” Jonathan asked.
“We should use fear like how the hedge funds did,” I responded, and Jonathan nodded.
I continued, “Hong Kong is the center of Asia’s financial world along with Tokyo. What would be the impact when they burn their stock market with their own hands?”
Jonathan shook a little because he knew what I was talking about.
“The whole world will be shocked. What if we add more fear to that?” I continued.
“Sun!” He shouted.
“The global stock market will thrash. Let’s bet on that,” I replied.
It could not be helped. Korea would have the IMF crisis sooner than recorded history, but they had to face the music, which might as well be sooner. I started booting up the computers.
“I’ll bet five billion dollars to Hong Kong when the time comes. What you and I have to do now is…” I said.
“Make the paper companies work with the rest of our funds under the prediction that the global stock market will plunge,” Jonathan finished my sentence.
“Yes. One thing that’s as significant as the profit is that no one knows about us. If someone discovers who we are, everything will end there,” I responded.
As we achieved everything at once, we could have collapsed just as quickly.
“Okay, then let’s start. We don’t have much time,” I said.
This was the feeling. The feeling of adrenaline that covered my entire body. It was just like the times I had to open reward boxes despite knowing the outcome, good or ill. I placed my hands on the keyboard as a bunch of thoughts flew in my head.
Then, the day came.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺