Golden Spoon Investment Portfolio - Chapter 226

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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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226. How could this possibly be happening…

The Trading Floor was always like a war zone, filled with dozens of traders clutching handsets and shouting over the cacophony of ringing phones scattered throughout the vast space.
But today it had descended into absolute chaos and panic, as if a powerful hurricane had swept through a forest and shaken every tree violently.

Ring! Ring!

Lackman, a junior trader at Lehman Brothers, his face flushed crimson, slammed the handset down hard as if to shatter it, watching Apple’s stock price plummet terrifyingly, and spat out a curse.

“Damn it! How much further is this going to fall!”

Then he turned his head toward his colleague sitting next to him and asked.

“Hey. How are the other sectors doing?”

Charlie, his fellow trader, who had the handset wedged between his shoulder and ear while rapidly typing on the keyboard to place orders, answered loudly.

“Construction, machinery, distribution—everything is getting destroyed!”

As Lackman stood up from his seat and stared at the massive ticker board mounted on the front wall, it was completely drenched in red—a sea of blood.
With not a speck of green visible in the entire display, Lackman let out a heavy sigh.

“Sigh. What in the world is happening.”
“It’s the aftermath of Apple’s earnings shock, obviously.”

Charlie said, lowering his handset.

“All this chaos just because of that?”

Lackman raised his eyebrows in disbelief and turned back to Charlie.

“It’s not just that. There was already massive anxiety about earnings, and Apple just lit a fire next to a pile of dry kindling.”

As he spoke, Charlie pointed with his chin at the monitor in front of them.

“Just look at the insane volume of sell orders pouring in.”

As Lackman turned to look at the monitor, a terrifying wave of selling was unfolding before his eyes.
Investors, frightened that other companies might report disappointing earnings following Apple’s shocking earnings miss that far exceeded expectations, rushed to lock in their profits all at once.
Like wildfire spreading through a reed field, everyone was shouting only “sell, sell” as they frantically dumped the stocks they held.
The S&P 500, which had started at 630, had plummeted over 15 points, and with the 610 line looking precarious, Lackman spoke with a disgusted expression.

“No matter how I look at it, this isn’t right. The investors—no, the entire market is overreacting!”

Charlie, standing beside him, tapped the numeric keypad with one hand and responded in an irritated voice.

“This panic selling doesn’t look like it’s going to end. Before we lose all the profits we’ve built up, you need to dump all your positions too. If we’re not careful, we might lose our bonuses—or worse, our desks.”
“What? Damn it!”

Lackman, who had significantly increased his allocation to IT companies to ride the recent internet wave heating up the market, watched his profit margin shrink as rapidly as the stock prices were plummeting. He hastily grabbed the receiver.

“Sell all 35,000 shares of IBM at market price!”

As investors like Lackman belatedly joined the selling frenzy, the New York Stock Exchange plunged downward with increasing force and depth, like a car with failed brakes.
Fear drove people to sell stocks, which triggered even greater panic and selling pressure, pulling the market into a death spiral of catastrophic collapse.

***

While Wall Street was engulfed in panic, screaming at the sudden market crash.
There was one place that had escaped the influence of the raging hurricane and was calmly observing the crumbling market—the Eldorado Fund.
Seok-won stepped onto the Trading Floor and stood between Landon Shore and Andrew, gazing at the massive ticker board that had turned completely red.
Watching the market plummet terrifyingly, as if swept away by a massive tsunami, Seok-won felt an exhilarating rush of adrenaline.
Even as he received margin call notices and deposited additional collateral, he was now reaping the rewards of maintaining his short positions to the end despite the risk.
Of course, he hadn’t only bet on shorts; he also held stakes in multiple companies like Microsoft and Cisco, so as the market collapsed, the value of the stocks held by the Eldorado Fund was also melting away.
Watching the market’s steep decline, Landon Shore murmured softly.

“It’s truly frightening how the market can change so drastically in an instant.”

Andrew glanced at his expression and spoke carefully.

“While our short betting succeeded, the value of the companies we hold stakes in is also declining significantly, so I’m a bit concerned.”

Seok-won, dressed in a perfectly fitted double-striped suit with a pocket square at his chest for accent, turned to look at Andrew and asked.

“I want to sell off some of our holdings before the price drops any further.”
“Even if we don’t sell everything, if we sell a portion now and buy it back at the bottom, we can pocket the difference. On top of that, we can amplify the selling pressure and magnify the downward movement, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hmm….”

I folded my arms and paused briefly to consider what Andrew had proposed.
Even if the S&P 500 plummeted to 580 as expected, our low average cost basis meant the Eldorado Fund would suffer no losses—only reduced profit margins.
Moreover, if it became clear that corporate earnings weren’t as dire as the market feared, the index would quickly bounce back from its lows, so I had no intention of trading in the interim.
But hearing Andrew’s pitch, I realized this was a golden opportunity to generate additional returns and potentially even expand our holdings—it seemed wasteful to simply let it slip away.
I made my decision quickly and turned to Andrew with a question.

“Can you wrap up the trading within three days?”
“Of course. If you entrust this to me, I won’t let you down.”

Seeing his confident response without a moment’s hesitation, I gave a slight nod.

“Good. Then leave the Cisco position as is and show me what you can do with the rest of the stocks.”
“Thank you.”

Andrew’s eyes gleamed with enthusiasm.
He strode forward and clapped his hands loudly.

“Alright, everyone, listen up!”

The team members, who had been leisurely watching the index collapse, turned their heads. Andrew, with his trademark suspenders and rolled-up sleeves, thrust his chin forward.

“That’s enough sightseeing—now it’s time to earn our keep.”
“I was starting to get a little bored anyway, so this is perfect!”

Mason’s spirited quip drew laughter from everyone around him.
Andrew chuckled and wore a mischievous grin.

“Then I’ll keep you all swamped and busy from here on out.”
“Woohoo!”

As the team playfully jeered, Andrew shrugged and pointed with one hand at me, standing behind Landon Shore.

“If you deliver satisfactory results here, the boss will stuff a generous bonus in your pockets.”
“Yay!”
“Really?”

Just moments ago, the team members who had been jeering suddenly brightened, their eyes gleaming with anticipation as they turned their gaze toward Seok-won.

“Of course there will be bonuses, and if our profits exceed ten million dollars, I’ll buy each of you a Rolex watch.”

Seok-won nodded reassuringly as he made his public declaration.

“Wow!”
“That’s our boss!”

Thunderous cheers erupted across the Trading Floor.
With their salaries, they could have purchased Rolex watches whenever they pleased, but as everyone knew, such incentives truly ignited the competitive spirit.

“Ten million dollars is nothing!”
“Right. Let’s get it done quickly!”

The team members whistled and shouted with confidence, their enthusiasm burning bright.
With fists clenched as if preparing for battle, they looked no different from overexcited children.
Seeing their renewed vigor, Andrew clapped his hands again to gather everyone’s attention.

“Then let’s start selling our current holdings immediately. Mason!”
“Yes!”
“You’re in charge of Estée Lauder stock. Sell 30% of our holdings.”
“Yes, Sir!”

Mason raised his hand in a crisp salute like a soldier and shouted loudly.
Andrew then proceeded to issue orders to the other team members in turn.

“Don’t touch Cisco. Sell Microsoft and other company shares. Right now!”
“Yes!”
“Understood!”

The team members acknowledged and immediately began executing the sales.
Though they appeared relaxed in their casual atmosphere, the traders of the Eldorado Fund demonstrated unparalleled speed and concentration once they engaged in their work.

“Don’t touch Cisco—only sell 30% of our holdings. Everyone, remember that!”

Mason then raised his thick forearm and asked a question.

“Should we also sell only 30% of the stocks in our proprietary trading account?”

Seok-won established a separate company account that allowed Andrew’s trading team to conduct autonomous transactions on a regular basis.
As the managed capital gradually increased to nearly five hundred million dollars, the volume of stocks held was equally substantial.

“Liquidate every single position in the trading account!”
“Understood.”

Following Andrew’s command with his sleeves rolled up, the team members moved in perfect synchronization to sell off their holdings, and Seok-won nodded slightly with a satisfied expression.
With selling pressure already mounting in the market, the Eldorado Fund’s massive position dump triggered a violent market tremor.
Then, as the S&P 500 index finally breached the 610 level it had barely been holding, the floodgates opened—an avalanche of sell orders far exceeding anything that had come before crashed down like a broken dam.

“Oh no…”
“Where is all this selling coming from?”
“My God. Heaven help us!”
“There are so many sell orders that trades aren’t being executed.”

The selling tsunami devoured every buy order in sight and sent the index plummeting, leaving the team members wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
Standing behind them, Seok-won wore a faint smile, as if he had anticipated this very moment.

“It appears the program trading bomb has finally detonated.”

Large funds and institutional investors programmed their computers to automatically buy or sell when certain conditions were met—this was called program trading.
When the S&P 500 index crashed through 610, the programmed algorithms triggered massive simultaneous sell orders across the board.
The sheer volume was so terrifying that it blanketed the entire trading screen with sell orders—even Landon Shore, standing beside me, swallowed hard.

“Surely the market won’t completely collapse, will it?”
“The shock will be severe, but as I mentioned before, it will bounce back in a V-shape quickly, so there’s no need to worry.”

Watching the index plummet like a vertical free fall from a cliff, I doubted whether it could truly rebound in just a few days.
However, Seok-won had never been wrong before, so Landon Shore steadied his wavering resolve and asked no further questions.
Ultimately, faced with such excessive selling pressure, the New York Stock Exchange activated circuit breakers to temporarily halt all trading and stabilize the panicked market.
But even that measure couldn’t calm investors already gripped by fear and anxiety.
Instead, the very need to trigger circuit breakers amplified the sense of crisis, and when trading resumed thirty minutes later, the S&P 500 immediately breached the 600 level, continuing its sharp decline.

***

John Miller, the head of P&P Partners, sat at his desk with a hollow expression, staring blankly at the two monitors before him.
The stock market had been a nightmare, with circuit breakers triggered twice, and now that trading had finally closed, the monitors displayed results that would have been unimaginable just this morning.

[S&P 500 579.73
−50.38]

Just as Seok-won had predicted, the index had plummeted more than fifty points, and John Miller found himself beyond mere bewilderment—as though possessed by some inexplicable force.
And on the final day of the wager, no less!
Unable to believe what he was seeing, he rubbed his eyes repeatedly and checked again, but the numbers remained unchanged, immutable.

“How is this even possible….”

Miller clenched his lower lip tightly, his voice trembling as he muttered to himself.

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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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