Golden Spoon Investment Portfolio - Chapter 11

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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11. Something doesn’t feel right about this.

“Hadoken!”
“Ryu!” Thwack!
“Ryu~~!” Whoosh. Smack!

After knocking down Ryu with a somersault kick, Seokwon pressed the Roy-controlled Ryu into the corner.
Then came a dazzling barrage of consecutive attacks!
Launching a Sonic Boom and Somersault Kick in rapid succession from a crouching stance, Roy’s Ryu couldn’t mount a proper counterattack and took the onslaught one-sidedly.

“Wait, hold on!”

Roy frantically mashed the controller buttons with a desperate expression, but the health bar was already draining away rapidly.
Then, as Ryu collapsed with a scream, Roy threw himself face-down on the floor in frustration.

“No, this can’t be!!!”

Meanwhile, Seokwon set down his controller with an unbothered expression.

“I told you, didn’t I? Come back after training for another ten years. Though I have to admit, your skill level makes it not entirely trivial.”

Despite his repeated victories, Seokwon seemed rather bored.
As he tossed out the remark and stood up, Roy’s indignant expression quickly faded into dejection.
Over the past few days, he’d updated his pathetic record to an even 50-50 split, unable to secure a single win.
Seeing him slumped like a rain-soaked puppy, Seokwon couldn’t help but smirk inwardly.

‘Was that too harsh?’

A twinge of pity crossed his mind, but he knew that if he didn’t drive the point home now, Roy would just keep pestering him endlessly. So he decided to leave it be.

“Hey, look outside. It’s already dawn.”

Seokwon picked up the backpack resting on the bed and pointed toward the window.
He’d woken up early for something, and Roy had somehow managed to drag him into gaming, so neither of them had noticed the sky brightening.

“The sun hasn’t even fully risen yet. Where are you going?”

Seok-won, dreading that Roy might ask for another round, subtly turned his head away to evade the conversation.

“I have other things to take care of.”
“I see….”

Roy, who had been slumped listlessly, suddenly sprang to his feet as if seized by determination.
He then pulled a single A4-sized sheet from the desk drawer and thrust it abruptly before Seok-won.

“Hey, sign this before you leave.”
“What is it?”

Seok-won took the paper and examined it, his brow furrowing.

“What is this?”
“Look at it yourself. It’s an entry form for the upcoming Street Fighter tournament.”
“Then why are you giving this to me?”
“I was originally planning to enter, but it seems like you’re the better choice to participate.”

Roy placed his hands on his hips and continued with solemn determination, as if making a grand concession.

“Go out there and crush those MIT guys mercilessly. You’ve got the skill for it!”

Though his expression was resolute, as if issuing a declaration of war, Seok-won found the whole thing absurd.

“That’s nonsense. Just go yourself.”

Seok-won shook his head firmly and tried to hand back the entry form.

“What? Why won’t you enter! Look, with your skill level, you could absolutely demolish those MIT guys!”

Roy suddenly grabbed him and clung to him desperately.

“You really have to compete! There’s no one else who can crush them like you can!”
“Do you have some kind of grudge against MIT….”

Seok-won openly displayed an exasperated expression and pressed his fingers to his forehead.
He felt a deep regret that he should have pretended not to hear when Roy first suggested the game, but there was no turning back now.

“Listen to me carefully. I have no interest in gaming tournaments, and I have even less time.”

Though I spoke firmly and decisively, Roy only grew more excited, his voice rising.

“What are you talking about! Letting talent like that go to waste is nothing short of a crime! What, you don’t have time? Skip the lectures! The competition is what matters, not some trivial class!”
“Ugh, you leech!”

I shook him off in exasperation, but Roy simply rolled across the floor, sprawling out flat with his limbs spread wide.

“No way, I won’t let you go! If you’re leaving, you’ll have to step over my body!”
“Who says I can’t?”
“Ahhh! Wait, wait!”

When I made as if to actually step on him, Roy scrambled to his feet and clung to my leg again.

“I won’t let go until you sign the entry form!”
“Sigh… why do I always end up tangled up with someone like this…”

I dragged my palm across my face, and eventually, reluctantly, I nodded.

“Fine! I’ll enter the competition, happy now!”

I immediately pulled out a pen and wrote my name on the entry form.

“There?”

Roy took the form back with a satisfied grin, his laughter bright and triumphant.

“Yeah.”
“Phew, I never should have played games with you in the first place.”

I quickly grabbed my backpack and headed outside before Roy could pester me further.
All that bickering since dawn had drained me completely, and I was already exhausted.

“What an annoying guy.”

I shuddered and walked briskly toward where I’d left my bicycle.
I’d signed the form, but I had no intention of actually competing.

‘I’ll just make up some excuse and drop out during the preliminaries. Then Roy won’t bother me about it anymore.’

With that thought, I unlocked the bicycle lock and mounted the saddle.
It was still early dawn, and the sprawling Campus was nearly deserted and quiet.
Cutting through the crisp morning air that now felt distinctly cold, I headed toward the Cafeteria located a short distance away.
Though I craved caffeine, it wasn’t yet opening time, so I settled my disappointment by claiming a seat at an outdoor table that had practically become my reserved spot.
I had one lecture in the morning and another in the afternoon, but today was important, so I had decided to skip them both.
Of course, I wasn’t like Roy, who skipped lectures as casually as eating meals, and since I normally maintained good attendance, missing these classes wouldn’t affect my grades.

“The phone battery should be sufficient, right?”

I pulled out my phone and confirmed that the high-capacity battery I had installed was fully charged at 100%, then checked my backpack to make sure the spare battery I’d packed just in case was there.
Today I would need to make and receive calls all day long, and it would be a disaster if the battery died in the middle of everything.

“This is rather inconvenient.”

Before the regression, there were plenty of places—cafes and elsewhere—where I could charge my phone, but now that I’d returned to the past, such conveniences didn’t exist, which was quite bothersome.

‘Then again, this is an era when hardly anyone carries a pager, let alone a mobile phone. It’s actually strange that I have a charging device at all.’

Indeed, when I used my phone on Campus, there were quite a few people who stared at me with curious expressions.
I flipped open my phone and pressed the button with my thumb to call Cox in New York.
Over the past few days, the international foreign exchange market had witnessed increasingly fierce battles between the Bank of England and the Global Hedge Funds over the pound sterling.
Because of this, Cox and other Wall Street traders kept their antennae sharp, monitoring the pound’s movements day and night.
Especially today—at my request, Cox had arrived at the trading floor earlier than usual and picked up the phone shortly after it began ringing.

[Yes.]
“It’s me.”
[I was waiting for your call.]

As I watched the dawn light gradually break, I asked.

“What’s the exchange rate now?”
[1.3900 dollars per pound.]

The Bank of England was defending the exchange rate with all its might, yet in the meantime, the pound had fallen another cent.

“Call me immediately if 1.3850 dollars breaks.”
[Understood.]

After ending the call, Seok-won set down his phone and exhaled softly.
The thought that today was the final decisive moment to bring the Bank of England to its knees made his body stiffen with tension without his realizing it.
To maintain composure, I pushed down the excitement rising within me.
Then I recalled an old memory with Manager Oh, who had once shared all manner of securities gossip and legendary investment success stories of Wall Street titans.

That day too, I had asked Manager Oh, a regular customer, this question while applying shoe polish with a cloth in my hand.

“Aren’t you busy?”

Manager Oh answered while wearing slippers and tapping his foot resting on the opposite knee.

“Why do you ask?”

I skillfully applied the polish-soaked cloth to the shoes after dusting them clean, and replied.

“It’s still work hours, so I wondered if it was alright for you to be out like this.”

Manager Oh, who held the rank of deputy manager before his promotion, waved his hand dismissively.

“It’s fine. Lunch is over, and sometimes you need to clear your head like this for work to go well.”

Manager Oh was a man with a Honam-style face and a glib tongue.
Occasionally, one might think he should have been a department store salesman rather than a stock trader, given how readily he spoke and how popular he was with many people.
With such a personality, it was no wonder he spoke so freely and familiarly even to a shoe shiner like me.
As I polished the shoes, I glanced up briefly at Manager Oh’s face.

“You’re not hiding here to escape your superior’s nagging, are you?”
“You caught on?”

Manager Oh chuckled and spoke.

“This is my secret hideout. You can’t tell anyone, alright?”
“Goodness.”

I shook my head as if to say he was hopeless.
I lit the portable gas burner and, holding the shoes with the polish evenly applied without clumping, repeatedly passed them lightly over the flame.
The shine came alive, and the toe of the shoe gleamed like glass.

“Wow. Your burnishing technique is quite impressive now.”

At Manager Oh’s praise, I wiped away the black shoe polish smudged beneath my nose with the back of my hand, allowing myself a slight moment of pride.

“With all the experience I’ve got, this is child’s play.”
“Ha. It feels like just yesterday you were stumbling around doing odd jobs, but look how much you’ve grown.”
“Hehe.”

I grinned, flashing my teeth, and scratched the back of my head.
Manager Oh was someone special to me—he’d known me since I first drifted into Yeouido and started shining shoes.
Whenever I sat across from Manager Oh, who looked after me in countless ways and occasionally shared entertaining stories, I sometimes felt as though he were a real older brother.

“Tell me more about that story from before. You cut it off in the middle because you were busy.”
“Ah, right.”

Manager Oh looked at me with an approving gaze, then as always, placed a cigarette between his lips and prepared to continue his story.

“When George Hamilton brought down the Bank of England, I mentioned last time that he moved differently than a typical hedge fund, remember?”

I nodded attentively.

“You said instead of steadily building positions, he dropped a nuclear bomb all at once.”
“Exactly. Normally, the textbook approach is to gradually increase your position and steer the situation in your favor, but George Hamilton and the Quantum Fund did the opposite—they aimed for a quick victory in a short timeframe.”
“Why would they do that?”

Manager Oh lit his cigarette and lowered his voice as if revealing a crucial secret.

“Because it was the most certain card to play.”

Seeing my confused expression, he continued.

“I mentioned before that given Britain’s difficult economic situation at the time, it was impossible to maintain the ERM indefinitely, right?”
“Yes.”

I nodded.

“So George Hamilton moved boldly and confidently to attack the Bank of England, but no matter how toothless an old lion is, the opponent was the British government. If the desperate British government requested help from the United States and borrowed massive amounts of foreign currency, what would happen then?”
“Even with George Hamilton being a Wall Street magnate and the Global Hedge Funds backing him, it would become a difficult battle.”
“Exactly.”

Manager Oh snapped his fingers sharply.

“That’s why we had no choice but to go for a short-term strike—aiming for the vital point and taking them down in one bite.”
“I see.”

Seokwon nodded as if understanding at last.

“So you were trying to knock them down before they could bring their friends and things got messy.”
“Well, something like that.”

Manager Oh crossed one leg and flicked the cigarette between his fingers.

“Last time I mentioned there were specific exchange rate fluctuation bands that had to be maintained to preserve the ERM, remember?”
“You said 2.25% above and below the base rate.”
“Right. Britain and Italy were specially allowed fluctuation bands of up to 6%.”
“….”
“In other words, any sell orders had to be absorbed to prevent the pound from falling below the threshold of 2.7780 marks per pound.”

Manager Oh put the cigarette back in his mouth.

“George Hamilton and the Global Hedge Funds’ strategy was remarkably simple—they just kept hurling pounds relentlessly until the Bank of England couldn’t handle it anymore.”

It was indiscriminate carpet bombing.
A scorched-earth campaign, dropping pounds like bombs from massive bombers in a devastating onslaught.

“Ugh. It must have been absolutely horrifying for those on the receiving end.”

Seokwon shuddered, and Manager Oh let out a chuckling laugh.

“It must have been. Their reserves were draining away while the sell orders never stopped coming. I’d wager the Bank of England officials’ blood ran cold during the assault.”
“I would have been the same.”

Manager Oh curled up one corner of his mouth as he spoke.

“The Bank of England, enduring George Hamilton and the hedge funds’ carpet bombing with everything they had, finally buckled under the strain trying to defend the pound—that was September 16th.”

Manager Oh exhaled white cigarette smoke and recounted the war’s conclusion matter-of-factly.

“It wasn’t just a withdrawal from the ERM—from that day forward, the pound was completely eliminated as a reserve currency.”

His gaze turned toward Seokwon with a faint smirk.

“You can’t even hear this stuff in university lectures.”

His voice, laughing as if to say I should appreciate how valuable this was, echoed in my ears like a distant memory.
September 16th—the day Manager Oh had mentioned—was today.

Beep! Beep!

Pulled from my reverie by the shrill ring of the phone, I quickly grabbed the mobile device resting on the table.

“Hello.”

Cox’s voice came through the line, tinged with barely concealed tension.

[The pound has broken through 1.3850 dollars and is falling!]

I instinctively sensed that George Hamilton and the hedge funds had finally begun dropping their nuclear bomb to decide the battle. I gripped the phone tighter and spoke.

“What’s the trading volume?”
[It’s already surpassed 500 million—no, it’s well over a billion dollars now. The sell orders just keep pouring in without stopping. This doesn’t look normal at all.]

The moment I heard those words, I knew the moment I’d been waiting for had arrived.

“Sell all 400 million dollars we have left!”
[You mean liquidate the entire position?]

Startled by the order, Cox asked for confirmation, and I pressed urgently.

“Yes.”
[Understood.]

After hearing his confirmation, I held the phone to my ear, my lips dry from tension. I moistened them with my tongue.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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