An Investor Who Sees The Future

When I suddenly had 1.24 billion won, I felt like I owned the world. But thinking rationally, it wasn’t enough money to live a carefree life forever.

Acting recklessly just because of a sudden windfall is a recipe for disaster.

Don’t we hear about lottery winners losing everything and ending up homeless within a decade?

To avoid that fate, one must stay grounded and responsible.

…I thought to myself, but just the idea of having a lot of money made me feel content. Do I really need to look for tutoring jobs, I pondered.

Ring!

My phone rang. I knew who it was.

“Why?”

“If you’re free, come over. Let’s play some games.”

With nothing else to do, I lounged around.I threw on some clothes hastily.

“I’ll stop by Taek-gyu’s place.”

***

Taek-gyu’s studio apartment had a separate living room, making it quite spacious for one person. However, with video games, comics, action figures, and various knick-knacks scattered around, the place resembled more of a junkyard.

Except for the sofa and bed, finding a spot to lie down was a challenge.

Inside the apartment, Taek-gyu sat on the couch, engrossed in a game.

Today should have been the day for the results announcement. However, there was still no news.

“Did you contact Hyun-joo noona?” Taek-gyu asked, not taking his eyes off the game screen.

“Yeah. She said the results might be out tomorrow.”

“Really?”

Doesn’t a prolonged meeting usually signal that things aren’t going well?

Something feels ominous.

WTI has dropped an additional 3 percent compared to when we bought it. I alone have already lost 10 million won, and together, we have lost 100 million won.

Did I misunderstand something?

While I was feeling anxious, Taek-gyu didn’t seem to care much.

“Are you okay?”

“What’s there to not be okay about? We have our Oracle Eye, remember?”

“······.”

Since when did it become ‘our Oracle Eye’?

Taek-gyu handed me a game controller.

“Let’s play a game. The answers will be out by tomorrow.”

There’s no point in worrying as the situation won’t change just because I’m anxious. It’s better to be as relaxed as he is.

I held onto the game controller and sat down next to Taek-gyu.

***

After playing games until dawn, I fell asleep as if collapsing from exhaustion.

Covered in a blanket on the sofa, I suddenly felt Taek-gyu waking me up.

“Hey, wake up.”

“Let me sleep a bit more.”

“I said get up.”

“What’s up? Wake me up later.”

As I reached out my hand to go back to sleep, Taek-gyu said, “The OPEC results are out.”

“What!?”

My eyes widened involuntarily.

I sat up straight and asked, “What happened?”

Taek-gyu pointed to the computer.

“Take a look for yourself.”

I sat at the desk and peered at the monitor.

The articles were flooded with news related to the OPEC production cut agreement.

– [Breaking News] OPEC reaches a dramatic agreement on production cuts

– [Urgent] Non-OPEC countries also join in production cuts

– Aviation industry on emergency alert due to OPEC production cuts. Impact inevitable

– Will gasoline prices rise?

– International oil prices surge with OPEC production cut decision

I clicked on any random article.

[OPEC member countries have agreed to cut oil production after a long meeting. OPEC, in a meeting held in Kuwait, has decided to reduce daily production by 2.5 million barrels starting from the first of next month.

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo announced that the member countries will comply with this agreement.

The market immediately welcomed the measures, which were much stronger than expected.

WTI, which was hovering around $60 per barrel, surged to over $70 per barrel upon news of the agreement, and the Dow Jones, which was initially declining, rose by 150 points.]

Most of the other articles had similar content.

I couldn’t contain my astonishment.

“What on earth…”

I checked the WTI price. It had risen to $73. Just minutes after OPEC announced the production cut, it had surged by over 20 percent.

“Check our accounts.”

Taek-gyu opened the accounts.

I only found out about the production cut agreement. I had no idea what would happen next.

“Let’s sell everything for now.”

I quickly sold all of my holdings.

Taek-gyu asked, “How much did you make?”

“$630,000.”

In Korean won, it’s approximately 700 million won.

I had made in an instant what most people couldn’t earn in a lifetime. It was unbelievable.

That’s just how finance works. If you succeed in your investment, it’s only natural to take profits proportional to your capital.

Let’s see. Shouldn’t my share be around 60 million won?

What was 740 million won is now 800 million won.

Taek-gyu said regretfully, “I should have bought $3 million more. I should have bought the initial $10 million I thought of.”

“It’s common to have such thoughts after a successful investment.”

“If only I had gone all in on futures options from the beginning?”

“······.”

Do you know what futures options are?

But if he had really done that, he could have made hundreds of billions.

“Wasn’t it an incredible success?”

“What do you mean?”

“All the experts predicted it wouldn’t work out, but you knew it would be agreed upon as soon as you heard about it.”

“That’s true, but······.”

In reality, when you remove the details, the outcome of a meeting is binary. It either reaches an agreement or it doesn’t.

So, even if it was lucky to hit the mark, it’s not surprising, but…

“If it happened once or twice, it might be possible, but this is already the third time. Precognition is real.”

“Gosh…”

Do I really have superpowers now? Like the superheroes in comics or movies?

When one thinks of superpowers, they imagine flying in the sky, smashing buildings with their fists, or manipulating objects with telekinesis.

Compared to those abilities, precognition might not seem like much.

However, viewed from a different perspective, that’s not true.

You can fly in the sky using an airplane, and buildings can be demolished with a crane. Such superpowers can easily be replaced by machines.

But precognition cannot be replaced by anything. Even with the advancements in computers and artificial intelligence, predicting the future remains impossible.

What if you could know election results beforehand? Or foresee the outcomes of sports matches like soccer or baseball? What if you could accurately predict natural disasters like earthquakes or typhoons?

That’s an incredibly unbelievable ability!

I calmed my excitement and thought rationally.

If this is really a superpower, when did it manifest in me? There should be a reason for it, shouldn’t there?

Taekgyu provided an answer to my question.

“I told you. You had latent superpowers within you, and they awakened in a critical moment. Usually, that’s called ‘awakening.’”

“Then why didn’t it show for a while after that?”

If holograms kept appearing in front of my eyes, I would have rushed straight to the casino as soon as I had a break.

Sitting at the baccarat table, betting a million won on the first round and doubling it each time I win. After just ten rounds, the million would turn into 10,240 million won.

And if I continued for another ten rounds, it would cross a trillion.

Just by flipping the cards twenty times, I could earn money in the hundreds of millions.

Of course, realistically, it’s impossible. Casinos have limits on betting amounts.

Well, there are plenty of easy ways to make money, not just in casinos.

But I didn’t see anything after that. So, I too thought it was just a delusion and moved on.

“Then why did it start appearing again?”

Taekgyu crossed his arms, lost in thought. Then he murmured.

“It appeared when I was talking about Bitcoin, and when my sister was talking about the OPEC meeting… Oh! Could it be the ability to foresee things related to finance?”

“Huh?”

Suddenly, that seemed possible.

But this raises a question that doesn’t quite make sense.

“What about the cannon explosion?”

“That was a situation where lives were at stake, so we should consider it an exception… No, wait. What happened next?”

“What?”

“After the explosion. Wasn’t that quite big news?”

“It was.”

When Taekgyu typed ‘KM188 explosion’ into the search bar, a series of old articles popped up.

At that time, the military was facing public criticism due to incidents of abuse by military police and sexual harassment in the army. The explosion incident that occurred then spread like wildfire through the media.

The opposition parties criticized the military, and an investigation team was formed.

The investigation results were shocking. The new cannon had defects from the beginning, and the defense agency knew it but turned a blind eye.

The accident was nothing short of planned from the start.

Three active-duty generals were stripped of their ranks over this, and the investigation expanded into wider defense corruption. Whether then or now, the defense industry is a breeding ground for corruption.

Those involved were being arrested one after another, and…

As the suppliers of KM188, Eun Sung Precision Chemicals, as well as Korean Aerospace Industries, Hwaan Defense, and other defense companies, all saw their stock prices plummet.

“So, isn’t that also related to finance?”

“…”

It’s not a wrong statement.

However, if you look at it that way, aren’t all the things happening in the world directly or indirectly related to finance?