New York, Manhattan, Broadway, Times Square.
Amid the tightly packed rows of towering skyscrapers lining both sides of the wide avenue, one building stood out, its dazzling neon signs flashing so brightly that it could be recognized at a glance even from far away.
It was the headquarters of Lehman Brothers, one of Wall Street's five major investment banks.
Inside the vast trading floor that occupied an entire floor of the building, hundreds of traders sat at desks separated by low partitions, busily carrying on their trades.
Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!
"Buy five thousand shares of Boeing at the current price!"
"At fifty-seven dollars and thirty-one cents? That price won't get filled!"
"Damn it! Everything else is going up, so why does Intel keep dropping?"
"Lowe's just reported earnings that beat market expectations!"
"On the back of Lowe's strong results, Walmart and Home Depot are moving up together!"
With phone rings and shouted orders blaring from all directions, the trading floor was deafening. Rackman, a senior trader, scanned the monitors set up on his desk at a rapid pace while gripping the handset and calling in an order.
"Buy thirty thousand shares of Lockheed Martin at 78, no, 79.11!"
[Hold on a moment. Okay. It's filled!]
As soon as the confirmation appeared on his monitor showing that the order had gone through, Rackman set the handset down.
Then he turned his head slightly to check the movement of the three major indices displayed on the monitor to his left.
[S&P 500: 1,151.06 ▲12.41 (+1.09%)]
[NASDAQ: 1,934.42 ▲35.84 (+1.89%)]
[DJI: 9,976.46 ▲109.47 (+1.11%)]
Thanks to the sharp cuts in the base interest rate and growing expectations of massive economic stimulus measures from the U.S. government, the New York stock market had been climbing day after day, as if the recent crash had never even happened.
Because of that, Rackman's trading account, which had been in the red, had now turned profitable before he knew it.
"If things keep going like this until the end of the year, I should be able to hit my target more or less."
After the collapse of the Twin Towers, the anthrax attacks, and then the Enron scandal breaking out one after another, the stock market had been thrown into absolute panic by this string of massive disasters.
Rackman, too, could do nothing but sigh whenever he looked at his investment account, which had been utterly wrecked.
With everyone pessimistically believing that the market would not recover anytime soon, all of Wall Street was gripped by fear.
And yet, contrary to all expectations, the market had rebounded this quickly. It could only be called a miracle.
Just then, Charlie Dietz leaned over the partition and asked,
"Did you check the Bloomberg breaking news?"
Rackman looked up and stared at him.
"Why? Did something happen?"
"Phillips Petroleum and Conoco just announced they're merging."
Rackman quickly turned to the Bloomberg terminal set up on the side, and sure enough, the breaking news about the merger was already on the screen.
[
Phillips Petroleum and Conoco agree to a $35 billion merger. If the merger goes through as announced, it will create the world's sixth-largest oil and gas company by production and reserves.]
"So it's true."
"As soon as the news broke, both stocks started soaring."
"If the merger goes through, they'll move up into the ranks of the majors, so that makes sense."
Dietz leaned his arms on top of the partition, a troubled look on his face.
"Should we buy in even now?"
Rackman tapped at the keyboard, pulled up the stock charts for both companies on his monitor, studied them for a moment, and then shook his head.
"It's too late. If you jump in now, the risk is bigger than what you stand to gain."
"True. Considering both stocks are already up more than 20%, no matter how good the news is, they've run up too much."
Dietz smacked his lips in disappointment.
"If I'd known this would happen, I should've loaded up on defense stocks when the White House announced the attack on Afghanistan."
Rackman leaned back against his chair and replied briefly.
"Raytheon and Lockheed Martin hit new all-time highs again today."
"And not just those two. Boeing and L3Harris are also shooting up like crazy."
Dietz let out a sigh, his face full of envy.
"Damn it. I remember the guys at the Eldorado Fund scooping up defense stocks when they were scraping the bottom. They must be making a killing this time too."
"Probably."
As he looked at the defense stock charts, which were rising especially steeply even in the midst of the broader market rally, Rackman let out a bitter smile.
"At a time when everyone's worried they might come into work and find a layoff notice on their desk, forget bonuses… and those guys are getting bonuses worth 200% of their annual salary. It's enough to make you die of envy."
Rackman himself was lucky enough not to have lost money, but it was still hard to expect a year-end bonus, so he couldn't hide his jealousy.
Still, he forced himself to think positively and said,
"Since we're up 20% from the bottom and have entered a bull market, we should be able to get decent bonuses next year."
"Sigh. I really hope so."
Still grumbling, Dietz suddenly looked around as if something had just occurred to him, then lowered his voice.
"By the way. Did you hear that rumor?"
"What now? Where did you pick up some weird story this time?"
Dietz was the type to pick up all kinds of pointless rumors, so Rackman replied with an indifferent expression.
But when he heard what came next, his fingers froze on the keyboard.
"The Eldorado Fund is shorting WorldCom and Xerox."
"…!"
Rackman frowned and turned to look at him.
"Is that really true?"
Dietz quickly nodded.
"Yeah. They're not going at it as aggressively as they did with Enron last time, so it hasn't drawn much attention yet, but they've definitely taken short positions."
Rackman swiftly checked the short interest in WorldCom and Xerox. Propping his chin up with one hand, he let out a low hum.
"Hmm."
Sure enough, the short interest in both companies had increased significantly compared to usual.
It was still impossible to say whether all of it was Eldorado Fund's doing, but it was clearly a bad sign.
"WorldCom is still reeling after being hit by the Enron fallout, so that's one thing. But Xerox doesn't seem to have any problems at all. I have no idea what they're plotting."
With his brows furrowed, Rackman stared intently at the monitor and replied,
"Given that the increased short interest across both companies is only around a hundred million dollars, it might not even be a fund-level move."
"True, that's possible. But the Enron thing left such a strong impression that whenever I hear the Eldorado Fund is shorting something, it just keeps nagging at me."
Rackman felt the same way.
That uneasy feeling just wouldn't go away, as if he were missing something important.
"Don't tell me these two companies cooked their books like Enron did?"
Dietz said it with a laugh, half-joking, but Rackman couldn't brush it off so lightly.
Unable to shake the doubt of "what if," he stared at the short interest figures on the monitor with a complicated look on his face.
***
Bathed in the glow of the setting sun, the entire 63 Building stood tall, shimmering beautifully in gold. Seok-won, wearing a cashmere coat, stepped out through the main entrance together with Manager Han Ji-sung.
Passing through the door held open by Geun-seong, he climbed into the back seat of the Maybach he had purchased not long ago, and the car soon began to glide forward in near silence.
A short while later, just as they were merging onto the main road, he felt a vibration from his pocket and took out his phone.
After checking the number on the screen, he immediately pressed the call button and answered.
"Landon, what's going on at this hour?"
[I'm calling because something urgent came up that I need to report to you right away, boss.]
Hearing the slightly stiff tone that was unlike him, Seok-won frowned and asked,
"What is it?"
[Things in Washington are starting to look strange.]
"What do you mean, strange?"
[The White House has been pushing to roll out a one-hundred-billion-dollar economic stimulus package, right?]
"Yes, and?"
[Opposition is growing, especially in the Senate, which is controlled by the Democratic Party.]
Seok-won frowned at the completely unexpected news and said,
"Wasn't there an agreement to put aside partisan fighting and have both parties work together to pass the stimulus in response to 9/11?"
[That was the case at first. But the war in Afghanistan is ending far more quickly and decisively than expected, and as a result, President Bush's approval rating has shot up to around 95%. It seems the Democrats have changed their thinking because of that.]
Now that he had a rough idea of what was going on, Seok-won clicked his tongue briefly in irritation.
"If this keeps up, they're going to get crushed in the midterms, so they're trying to slam on the brakes any way they can."
[On the surface, the opposition is arguing that instead of cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, it would be better to increase unemployment benefits and expand medical insurance support for laid-off workers.]
"The core of the White House's stimulus plan is tax cuts. Telling them not to do that is basically the same as overturning the whole thing. There's no way President Bush would accept it."
[I agree.]
Sinking into the soft Nappa leather seat, Seok-won frowned slightly and said,
"How is President Bush reacting?"
[From what I've heard through our contacts in the White House, President Bush is very angry about the opposition changing its stance.]
"The stock market has recovered, but the signs of an economic slowdown are becoming more and more obvious. If they're not going to help and are only going to get in the way, of course he'd be irritated."
[Exactly. So if the Democrats keep stonewalling, it seems he's even considering forcing it through.]
Hearing this, Seok-won's expression hardened.
"So instead of trying to resolve it through negotiations, he's going straight for a hardline approach?"
[With his approval ratings so high, and with the justification of preventing an economic downturn through a massive stimulus package, it seems President Bush is planning to take a tough stance.]
"On top of that, with the midterms coming up, he's probably also aiming to ride public opinion, completely crush the Democrats' momentum, and firmly seize control of the political landscape."
[That's very likely part of his intention as well.]
Adjusting his grip on the phone, Seok-won asked,
"What do you think is going to happen, Landon?"
Landon replied in a cautious tone.
[Given how weak the U.S. economy is, the stimulus will probably pass in the end, but I don't think it'll go through as smoothly as we originally expected.]
Since Seok-won was thinking the same thing, he gave a small nod.
Rubbing his chin, he pondered for a moment, then his eyes flashed sharply as he gave an order.
"If the passage of the stimulus gets delayed, market volatility will increase that much. We should wrap up our put option purchases earlier than originally planned. And start the short positions on WorldCom and Xerox in earnest as well."
[President Bush is already in a bad mood because of the stimulus bill issue. Are you sure it's okay to do this?]
"I'd rather not create a situation where it looks like we're dragging down a stock market that's finally starting to recover. But we can't hesitate and miss the timing either. So go ahead and proceed."
[Understood.]
Rubbing his furrowed brow, Seok-won said,
"Still, there's nothing to be gained from getting on President Bush's bad side. Just in case anything goes wrong, don't hold back on spending money and make sure the White House is well greased."
[Yes. I'll take care of it.]
After talking a little longer, Seok-won ended the call. Folding his arms, he muttered to himself,
"If this is how it goes, the WorldCom incident is going to break out earlier than we originally expected."