Chapter 117: Pang Pang

Europe, Athens – Greek Bond Market.

Sell orders for bonds were pouring in at an incredible speed.

The situation was nothing short of a panic sell.

“Sir, the Greek CDS spread is skyrocketing!”

Grant shouted with an excited voice.

“What’s the current premium?”

“The 10-year benchmark has surpassed 1,200bp. Not only that, the entire European CDS market is in turmoil.”

CDS is a product that trades the risk of bond default.

A rising premium meant the market was now certain of a Greek government default.

Lisa added further explanation.

“The ECB is considering support for Greece, but the German and French governments are delaying a decision due to internal political backlash.”

“In the end, they’ll have no choice but to cling to the IMF’s coattails.”

The ECB alone could never handle Greece’s debt.

The curtain was rising on the European financial crisis.

…

…

…

“Greek bond short position expansion complete!”

“Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian bank bonds also short-set, finalized.”

Shouts from traders echoed everywhere.

Grant, having switched the connected microphones to ‘off,’ looked at me.

“Should we enter the European stock market now?”

I nodded.

“Increase short positions centered on bank and real estate stocks.”

“Yes.”

This time, I gave one more instruction to Lisa.

“Also expand the euro sell position. Exchange rate volatility will be the core of this investment.”

“Understood.”

Following my instructions, Grant and Lisa finalized all position settings in just two days.

A week later.

The Greek economy began to collapse rapidly.

• Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) Index plunges 45%.

• Greek 10-year bond yield surpasses 12%.

• EUR/USD exchange rate collapses below 1.20 dollars.

• Spanish and Italian bank stocks plummet over 30%.

• Europe’s austerity policies become widespread.

• ECB and IMF begin discussions on joint bailout.

Finally, the New York Times headline read:

[Greek Financial Crisis Engulfs Europe]

“Sir, the ECB has called an emergency meeting next week.”

Lisa reported with an excited expression.

“The German Chancellor has also announced acceptance of a conditional support plan.”

I turned my gaze to the monitor, where the graphs were changing at an incredible speed.

The volatility was beyond imagination.

• Greek 10-year bond yield surpasses 14%.

• EUR/USD exchange rate collapses below 1.18 dollars.

• ASE Index down 52% from the previous month.

• Spanish and Portuguese bank CDS at all-time highs.

I stood up and slowly looked at the two of them.

“Lisa, Grant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When the ECB announces the bailout conditions tomorrow morning, the market will rebound. Liquidate the sell positions before that.”

Grant nodded.

“I’ll proceed with position liquidation right away.”

“What should we do after that?”

Lisa looked at me, wanting further instructions.

“No need to hesitate, let’s go for a low-price buy-in centered on Greek bonds and bank bonds.”

Lisa looked startled at my words.

“You’re saying to buy Greek bonds with a risk of default?”

I smiled and replied.

“The market moves on fear and greed. The risk of default is already priced in. Besides, with the IMF directly involved, the Eurozone won’t abandon Greece.”

No matter how foolish European politicians might be,

they wouldn’t let the Eurozone collapse.

“Focus the low-price buy-in on 5-year and 10-year Greek bonds, and major bank bonds. For the stock market, only select blue-chip companies listed on the ASE.”

Grant replied energetically.

“I’ll prepare it right away.”

“And Lisa.”

“Yes, boss.”

“This rebound won’t last long. We need to exit at the right timing.”

Austerity policies were more likely to cause pain than recover the economy.

And that’s exactly what happened.

Moreover, to quickly escape this situation, the political sphere needed to stabilize first.

Greece’s chaotic political situation was ill-equipped to navigate such a crisis.

“So, are you planning to short Greek bonds and stocks again?”

“I plan to stop investing in Greece here.”

At my words, Grant and Lisa nodded simultaneously.

“I knew you’d say that.”

Grant smiled,

and Lisa looked a bit disappointed.

“No need to be disappointed. With this profit, we’ve extracted everything possible from the Greek crisis.”

Of course, Greece’s financial crisis would continue until 2018,

but all that remained were wreckage and political uncertainty.

Staying on a sinking ship could mean drowning together.

It was time to withdraw.

Wowwwww!

“Wow. Is all this really profit?”

Seong-hwan stared at the numbers on the monitor, looking incredulous.

Lisa calmly flipped through the report, adding an explanation.

“Based on final settlement, the profit from the Greek financial crisis investment totals $3.27 billion. The initial profit from short position liquidation is $2.35 billion, and an additional $920 million was realized from the low-price buy-in and short-term rebound.”

Grant added.

“In terms of return on investment, it’s about 87% of the total investment.”

Even excluding the $2 billion recently transferred to Dojin Tech,

we earned an additional $1.27 billion.

Grant and Lisa achieved in just over a month what they had earned over two years after the global financial crisis.

“Good.”

“What should we do for the next investment?”

I immediately answered Grant’s question.

“Focus on New York for now.”

“Do you have something in mind?”

“For a while, the U.S. will keep interest rates low.”

Grant nodded in agreement.

“The Fed has announced QE2, the second round of quantitative easing, so you think another rally will be attempted based on that liquidity?”

I know the future,

but Grant definitely had an eye for the market.

“I think another bull market will come, centered on tech stocks.”

“By tech stocks, do you mean companies like A-ple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon?”

I nodded and added.

“I’m expecting a long-term upward trend centered on tech stocks, semiconductors, and some consumer sectors. So don’t worry about short-term volatility, and focus your strategy on the U.S. mainland market.”

“I’ll completely revise the portfolio according to your instructions.”

Both during the last global financial crisis

and now with the Greek financial crisis, they earned a lot of money by following my advice.

So neither Lisa nor Grant strongly opposed my opinion.

In fact, they devised ways to maximize profits based on my opinion.

“While maintaining existing long positions, I’ll also consider investments in derivatives like options.”

With that final instruction to Grant,

I headed to New York JFK Airport with Seong-hwan.

I couldn’t leave Dojin Tech unattended for long.

South Korea, Incheon International Airport.

As soon as I turned on my phone,

alarms started going off nonstop.

Reports I couldn’t check while on the plane:

Quantum sales report,

overseas media response report,

A-series development schedule report, and more.

Heading to immigration, I quickly read through each one.

[Quantum A-series concept finalized, design samples and spec list being organized.]

It was a message from Chilbong.

Next, I checked a message from Hong Chung-ki.

[Pop-up store first week results report. Total visitors at 12 major locations nationwide: 480,000. Quantum brand awareness surge. KTalk daily active users surpass 3 million.]

Just reading it made the corners of my mouth curl up.

My plan to neutralize Ahsung’s offline stores was working perfectly.

I couldn’t compare to Ahsung in terms of offline store numbers,

but with proper promotion, online sales were more than sufficient,

and the results proved it.

[Quantum weekly sales surpass 400,000 units!]

‘Still, we can’t open pop-up stores every time, so we need to come up with an alternative.’

“Hyung, what are you thinking about?”

After finishing immigration,

Seong-hwan, waiting for our luggage, stared at me.

“We need to create a mobile shopping mall.”

“Mobile shopping mall? Like an online shopping mall?”

I glanced at Seong-hwan and added an explanation.

“Similar, but a bit different. It’s a mobile-exclusive shopping mall, and we’ll use express delivery so that orders placed today arrive tomorrow morning.”

“What? Is that even possible? Even now, it takes at least two days for deliveries to arrive after ordering.”

The reason Coupang succeeded in my previous life was that it reduced the two-day delivery time to one day.

“We need to build the infrastructure first to make that possible. Of course, it can’t be done quickly. It’ll cost a lot…”

Securing logistics infrastructure wasn’t easy.

But to completely neutralize Ahsung’s offline stores,

there was nothing better than a mobile shopping mall.

“Anyway, we’ll name the shopping mall ‘Pang Pang.’ Discuss it with Oh Seong-hak. I’ll explain it to Han Yu-ju.”

In my previous life, I used Coupang several times a week, so I knew how shopping malls were structured.

With my experience and Dojin Soft’s development capabilities combined, creating the shopping mall itself wouldn’t take long.

Of course, implementing express delivery would take some time.

“It feels like we spend more money than we earn.”

Seong-hwan sighed.

Watching him, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Still, man, compared to the early days when we worked without pay, this is a huge improvement.”

“Hehe, that’s true. Now, when we return from overseas trips, we even have a driver waiting for us.”

Just as Seong-hwan said,

when we left the airport with our luggage, a luxury sedan that looked incredibly expensive was waiting for us.

“Heading to the office?”

“Of course, I have a lot of work piled up.”

Seong-hwan seemed to want to take at least one day off,

but to bring down Ahsung, there was no time to rest.

Unwelcome news was already waiting for me.