After leaving the Quantum Fund and newly establishing K Capital, Rodney sat on a sofa in his office overlooking New York's skyscrapers, one leg crossed over the other, watching the news playing on the television across from him.
[With the Afghanistan Northern Alliance, backed by U.S. military support, entering the capital Kabul the previous day and now pushing the Taliban out of Kandahar in the south, expectations are growing that the war may end earlier than initially anticipated. In addition, anticipation is building that the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) will once again implement a substantial interest rate cut at the upcoming FOMC meeting scheduled for next month in order to stimulate the economy. As a result, the New York stock market rose sharply today, overcoming concerns over anthrax terrorism. By sector, airlines, retail, securities, paper, and chemicals showed strong gains....]
Rodney, dressed in a gray suit, picked up the remote control and turned off the television.
At that moment, Dale Klein—also Jewish, a Harvard University alumnus, and someone Rodney had recruited as CIO when founding K Capital—spoke first from the sofa on the right.
"Things like this breaking at just the right timing… Chairman Seok-won Park really does seem incredibly lucky."
"Luck, you say… Do you truly think this is just fortune that happened to come his way?"
As Rodney leaned back and folded his arms while asking the question, Klein's eyes widened slightly.
"Are you suggesting that Chairman Seok-won Park planned even this?"
At the implied question of whether such a thing was even possible, Rodney replied in a calm, subdued voice.
"You're aware of how much money the Eldorado Fund has been pushing into the market over the past two days."
"I can't confirm the exact amount, but everyone estimates it's probably well over one hundred billion dollars, don't they?"
Rodney gave a small nod.
"That's right. Not the Fed or the U.S. government, but a single fund moving an amount like that—it's truly astonishing. What's even more unbelievable is that even after doing all that, they're still continuing to scoop up stocks."
Normally, trades were concealed to avoid exposing positions, but the Eldorado Fund did the opposite, openly buying shares without any attempt to hide it.
'No, to be precise, it wasn't that they didn't want to hide it—they simply couldn't.'
In the incredibly short span of just two days, they had quite literally swept up an enormous volume of shares worth nearly one hundred billion dollars. If something like that went unnoticed, that would have been even stranger.
When the stock market had crashed due to the horrific 9/11 attacks, the Eldorado Fund had repurchased the shares it had previously sold short, rapidly reducing its short positions, so at first everyone assumed that was all it was.
However, even after fully covering its short positions, the Eldorado Fund did not stop. On the contrary, it poured in massive amounts of capital and swept up even more stocks.
Only then did Rodney and the other Wall Street investors realize that something was unfolding in a very strange way.
Resting his elbow on the armrest of the sofa, Rodney expressed his admiration from the bottom of his heart.
"Even George Soros, chairman of the Quantum Fund where I used to work, would find it difficult to move an amount of capital this large all at once."
"That means it must have been an action thoroughly prepared in advance."
As Klein leaned forward and adopted a serious expression, Rodney shrugged his shoulders and asked,
"If that weren't the case, do you think someone like you could boldly pour in a sum well over one hundred billion dollars into a falling market like this?"
Klein gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"Even if there's a high chance of a rebound because the market has fallen excessively in the short term due to panic, it would be hard to make such a gamble when fears of a recession are compounded by the terror of anthrax attacks."
"I feel the same."
Rodney recalled the face of Seok-won, whom he had met a few times in the past.
"To think of single-handedly trying to reverse the flow of the enormous New York stock market—this isn't some small emerging market—it's truly astonishing."
Rodney was both amazed and impressed by Seok-won's moves, yet at the same time felt a strong sense of rivalry.
There had been a time when he believed himself to be in a superior position, but the fact that their standings had quietly reversed at some point pricked at his pride.
"If someone had said they were going to change the direction of the market, I would have laughed and called them insane. It hasn't been a complete success yet, but with the atmosphere clearly shifting, I can't do that anymore."
Klein adjusted his posture and lowered his voice seriously.
"One thing is certain: if the market manages to rebound like this, Chairman Seok-won Park's influence on Wall Street will only grow stronger."
Rodney responded with a bitter smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"When the Eldorado Fund started pouring in money and taking long positions, even the hedge funds that had been selling stocks and shrinking their positions—like a pack of rats following their leader—hurriedly changed their stance and turned to buying. Just looking at that, doesn't it already prove how tremendous Chairman Park's impact on Wall Street has become?"
As he thought of Seok-won—someone younger than himself, yet already a titan who held Wall Street, the heart of the global economy, in the palm of his hand and shook it at will—emotions of admiration, jealousy, and rivalry crossed Rodney's face.
He now understood why George Soros, the man hailed as a hedge fund legend for bringing down the Bank of England, had praised Seok-won so highly and lamented that he had never been able to take him under his wing.
Even so, understanding it was one thing—but he couldn't afford to keep falling behind like this.
Steeling his resolve to surpass Seok-won someday, Rodney looked at Klein with eyes gleaming with determination.
"The board has been set. We can't just stand on the sidelines with our hands behind our backs."
"You're planning to follow Chairman Park and place long bets?"
"That's right. We're still small in scale, so we can't buy up the entire market like the Eldorado Fund. Let's concentrate our investments on just two stocks: Microsoft and ExxonMobil."
At that, Klein immediately added a different opinion.
"Financial stocks that clashed head-on with the Eldorado Fund over Enron were soundly beaten down, falling even more than the broader market, so they're undervalued right now. How about buying Merrill Lynch as well?"
After thinking it over briefly, it didn't seem like a bad idea.
"Alright. Let's do that."
The two of them discussed in detail how to allocate the fund's capital across the three stocks and then moved straight into action.
In this way, not only Rodney but also numerous institutional investors and funds across Wall Street—who had been watching cautiously—began, one by one, to quickly follow the Eldorado Fund and join in the buying.
***
Inside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), located on Wall Street's 11 Broad Street, it was deafeningly loud with traders in vests and jackets of various colors shouting at one another.
"Buy 20,000 shares of Hewlett-Packard at 25.31!"
"Boeing, buy 15,000 shares at the market price!"
As if the time they had spent cowering under fears of an economic downturn and anthrax terrorism had been a lie, everyone was now fired up, eager to buy stocks.
Amidst the chaos, Ian Jefferson, the head trader at the Salomon Smith Barney booth, lowered the handset he had been holding and used hand signals to relay the buy order that had just come in to the traders out on the floor.
Having been shouting nonstop since morning, his throat was parched. He quenched it with bottled water, tossed the empty bottle into a trash can, and then turned his gaze to the female employee seated at one side of the booth.
"How many trades have we had so far?"
At that, the female employee wearing black-rimmed glasses replied without getting up, turning only her head from where she sat.
"Just in the morning session alone, we've already gone over ninety-five million shares."
"Hah. This is absolutely insane."
Jefferson placed both hands on his hips and shook his head.
Just as the trading volume was exploding, all three major indices displayed on the monitors in front of him were also surging sharply.
As recently as yesterday, trading volume had plunged, and the atmosphere had felt like a funeral. Now, as if by some cruel joke, the situation had been completely reversed in an instant.
"To think the market would change like this the moment Chairman Seok-won Park stepped in. It's truly incredible."
Jefferson let out an exclamation, as if he had no choice but to acknowledge it.
He and everyone else participating in the market knew perfectly well who had changed the direction of the stock market.
It was already common knowledge on Wall Street that he possessed extraordinary insight and investment skill—so much so that he had posted astonishing results time and again and earned the nickname the Midas touch.
This time as well, hadn't he seen through Enron's accounting fraud and boldly taken short positions, raking in enormous profits on his own while everyone else was getting utterly crushed, becoming the object of both envy and jealousy?
And now, watching him go beyond mere short covering in a market filled with fear and suddenly pour in massive amounts of capital to sweep up stocks, it was impossible not to blurt out that he was insane.
'No matter how much it was Chairman Seok-won Park, going against the market alone was practically a suicidal act—so that reaction was inevitable.'
When people first realized that the Eldorado Fund had taken long positions, most of them clicked their tongues, saying that Chairman Seok-won Park—who until now had known nothing but success—had grown overconfident and made a huge mistake.
Jefferson was no exception. Many Wall Street investors who had long felt resentful of the Eldorado Fund's remarkable track record even went so far as to sneer that its true bottom had finally been exposed.
"But that atmosphere changed in a single day—no, not even half a day."
Jefferson muttered with a bitter smile.
Watching them quite literally pour in an enormous amount of capital—well over tens of billions of dollars—on the very first day alone to sweep up stocks, he had sensed that something about the situation was far from ordinary.
On top of that, when numerous traders and funds began to pile in on the buying, following the Eldorado Fund with copycat trades, the mood shifted abruptly.
Contrary to the dismissive assessment that it was a reckless act, the moment people saw the three major indices—which had been in steady decline—hit bottom and begin to rebound, they grew anxious.
"The utterly unbelievable investment performance Chairman Seok-won Park has shown so far only made other investors even more restless."
When the fear struck that a single misstep could mean watching the market recover as the indices surged—while they alone were left behind, sucking their fingers and missing the rally—investors rushed headlong into the buying frenzy.
"And this is the result."
Watching all three major indices surge upward in red on the monitors in front of him, Jefferson let out an admiring sigh.
What he had believed to be absolutely impossible had been accomplished with startling ease by Seok-won, to the point that his feelings went beyond simple admiration and bordered on awe.
As he listened to the traders' shouts growing louder and louder in tandem with the rising indices, Jefferson ran a hand through his hair.
"He's proven that he can move the market on his own. From here on out, the presence of the Eldorado Fund—no, of Chairman Seok-won Park—is only going to grow even larger."
***
As the stock market continued its upward trend led by the Eldorado Fund, buying enthusiasm ignited even more fiercely on positive news from the October retail sales report released in the afternoon, which showed automobile sales surging by a staggering 7.1%.
On top of that, when Intel—the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer—announced earnings that exceeded expectations, the Nasdaq skyrocketed past the 1,900 mark.
With the market closing after a sharp rally, Seok-won stood by the railing of the penthouse balcony overlooking Central Park, speaking on his mobile phone with President Bush.
[The stock market had been giving me nothing but headaches after the recent terrorist attack sent it plunging, but thanks to you, I can finally breathe a little easier. I'm truly grateful.]
Hearing the fatigue-laden voice of President Bush, Seok-won replied with a humble attitude.
"I simply bought because stock prices had fallen far too cheaply compared to the strong fundamentals of the U.S. economy."
[Haha. Even so, pouring massive amounts of capital into buying stocks in a market gripped by fear because of the sudden anthrax scare isn't an easy thing to do. And even if it wasn't your intention, thanks to your actions, I've been spared one major headache when I already have more than enough to worry about—so how could I not be grateful?]
"I'm glad to hear that I was able to help, even if only in a small way."
At that moment, President Bush lowered his voice slightly and spoke.
[Within two or three days, a large-scale economic stimulus package worth several tens of billions of dollars is scheduled to be announced.]
"Is that so?"
Seok-won's eyes flashed for an instant.
[I'm letting only you know quietly. Make sure not to tell anyone else until the announcement is made.]
"Understood."
[I'd like to talk more if I could, but I have another engagement to attend to. Let's speak again next time.]
"Yes. Take care."
When President Bush hung up first, Seok-won lowered his phone.
Then, gazing at the crimson sunset sinking between Manhattan's towering skyscrapers, he slowly curled one corner of his mouth into a grin.
"With a massive stimulus package coming out and the Fed cutting interest rates further, the stock market will continue to surge steeply from here."
And as the three major indices succeeded in rebounding and skyrocketing, all of it would return, intact, as profits for the Eldorado Fund.