The next two weeks were gone just like that. By day, I was Kwon Min-jun, Mr. Choi's diligent apprentice, dutifully tracking SK Telecom's slow and steady rise. Mr. Choi would occasionally ask questions and I'd parrot back his own lessons on market fundamentals, earning some nods of approval. I still had a lot to learn , I wasn't just reading company reports but also about candlestick patterns and MACD swings , these were some heavy terms which i was trying to fit in my brain.
He seemed to think I was a decent, if overly cautious, student. He had no idea it was all a facade.
One interesting fact i got to know was that Retail traders relied on 15 minute delayed charts unless they had premium subscription or used backdoor software. well you can say i will be considered expert in softwares at this time.
By night, and during every free time I was adding to the NeoPharm's hype and i also figured out how to run a cracked version of eBEST's real-time terminal during that time to get the live updates . Reporter Park's article also added some legitimacy to the claim. The "buy walls" I'd subtly created through spoofing, even if small, gave retails some assurance to consider it as an opportunity.
Now all i needed was to wait , to see how it unfolds , if it was failure at least i learnt some things. The key now was escalating the narrative.
"DayTraderKim" became more aggressive: "NPHM +15% this week! Told you all! This isn't just a pop, it's a ROCKET! Next stop, doubling our money! Strong buy! Jajaja!".
Almost immediately, replies started flooding in:
User_AntPower21: "Just bought more NPHM! To the moon! Let's goooo!"
CautiousInvestor77: "Isn't this moving too fast? Seems purely speculative..."
"saviourGojo" would then "reluctantly" agree with me. The momentum behind NPHM is undeniable. Still, exercise caution, but the indicators are looking very strong. Did my own digging, the US partnership rumor for NP-007 seems to have more legs than I initially thought." Some suspicions were there but this was much was common.
I was also covering my tracks by not leaving a trail back to a single entity , so it all doesn't come crashing down on me. I was out of funds , and all the money i had was gone just like that. But this was fun , each time, I'd feel a jolt, a gambler's high they called it , now i understood it's meaning. The adult part of me watched in embarrassment as my 17 year old self got way too hyped about a stock bump.
My initial 200,000 won in NeoPharm, plus the 150,000 won I'd used for active manipulation had now ballooned. After a little over a month and a half of this sustained campaign, my NeoPharm holdings were worth well over a million won. It wasn't that much money, not even close, but for a lad from a poor family, it felt like a fortune.
But the future knowledge was a double-edged sword. I knew NeoPharm's hype was built on sand. I remembered that the initial excitement around NP-007 eventually fizzled. There was no blockbuster US partnership, no miracle drug.
The stock would eventually drift back down, or worse, crash, when the real, less exciting, clinical data will come to light. The trick was knowing when to get out. I had more stuff that i knew about the future i know but i needed to test the waters first , can i do it? this was the proof that I CAN.
This particular late November, early December period in 2000... this was roughly the window. The peak of the baseless hype before a dose of reality hit sometime in the new year.
While managing the NeoPharm pump, I was also managing my school life , also doing "homework" for Mr. Choi, which provided the perfect cover for my other research. I had least interest in study this time around , I was not taking that much pressure , maybe later in life i realized that it was all for nothing.
I was also making notes so i don't forget the future events that would occur , Daum was there , but i needed some other companies like Coupang and Kakao that would start around 2005-2008 but they were still far away , they would later become giants , a small investment would also become millions later. Also some movies that became cultural phenomena , K-pop wave that would later take the world by storm. Gaming , where i knew some small studios , NCSoft was there, that would later create blockbuster hits.
These weren't trades; they were long-term holds, legacy builders. My NeoPharm play was for quick, dirty capital. This other list was for the future I was really building.
One afternoon , I was looking at my SK Telecom position with Mr. Choi. Up a solid, respectable 5%. "Good, Min-jun," he'd said that day. "Discipline. See how discipline pays?"
I nodded. "Yes, sir. This experience was certainly helpful ." I made a comment , almost thinking aloud , "it is interesting sir , how much of a stock's movement , especially the smaller ones like some of KOSDAQ listings are driven by sentiment rather than actual value , if enough people believe it'll just go up , until it doesn't".
Mr. Choi stopped tracing a line on his chart and looked at me with gruff expression , his eyes a little more focused on me , i felt a flush of panic. Had i said too much? it revealed a cynicism that didn't fit my persona i put up in front of teacher. He grunted "Sentiment comes and goes , but value stays. Don't get caught up in the noise of the herd" didn't say more and turned back to his charts. But his prolonged stare, and the sudden change of subject, left me wondering if he sensed something.
Inside, I felt the heartbeat rising , NeoPharm endgame was approaching , it was almost time to jump off. I needed to do it cleanly without anyone especially Mr. Choi noticing.