Chapter 37

Chapter 37

"But Jeong-su, why are you looking at that book?"

Peter pointed at the thick English book set beside me and asked.

"Ah, this? Trying to study Australian stocks a bit."

I answered as if nothing, crumpling the sandwich wrapper.

"Oh, stocks? The Australian stock market is quite fun. If there's something confusing, shall I help?"

Peter said, sipping cola and laughing good-natured.

I looked at Peter as if unexpected and brightened.

"Oh, really? You do stocks too, Peter?"

At my asking back, Foreman Gary eating lunch and Uncle Mick sitting opposite suddenly burst a laugh, "puheup!"

At last even the other workers sitting around began shaking their shoulders, snickering.

"What? Why are you all laughing like that?"

When I only blinked not knowing why, Uncle Mick opened his mouth giggling.

"Kahaha! Jeong-su, you didn't know what that Peter bastard originally did?"

"What did Peter do? Before pulling a forklift, what... did he stand bank security?"

"Bank security! That bastard majored in business at the University of Sydney."

"······Yes?"

I nearly sprayed the cola I had in my mouth.

Sydney University, which the agency had told me before, was a tremendous prestigious school.

In Korean terms, Seoul National level, shall I say.

Exact, I think they said the University of Sydney was the symbol of old money and tradition.

And if he majored in business there, by Korean standards an elite course no question?

"A, a guy who came out of Seoul National... no, Sydney University business, why is he driving a forklift here covered in dust?!"

A voice full of shock jumped out without me knowing.

Peter himself, the party, shrugged as if my fierce reaction was rather strange.

"Why? After graduating I sat in a finance-company office a bit, and tying a tie and looking at a monitor all day was too stifling and no fun. Sweating outside and pulling the forklift lever fits me much better. And there's something I want to do separate."

Peter bit the remaining meat pie large, as if nothing.

In a word, 'an elite who graduated Seoul National business found tying a tie stuffy and is driving a forklift on a labor board.'

This was really eccentric conduct Korean common sense could not understand at all.

Come out of a prestigious university and work on a construction site, and the house flips right away, or it's a situation short even of coming out on a TV program like 'what a thing in the world.'

But what came as a bigger shock to me was the reaction of the people around.

"Heh heh. In Australia, site trades like us get paid much fatter than ordinary tie gentlemen."

"Right. This side is much better! Office gentlemen won't know the taste of a cool beer drunk sweating on site?"

"Whether that Peter bastard is smart, he drives one forklift incredible again. Hahaha!"

The workers around, including Foreman Gary and Uncle Mick, were accepting Peter's choice too natural and obvious.

Not a trace, not even 1 percent, of looking through colored glasses because a prestigious-university graduate does physical labor, or treating him as a dropout wasting life.

They only treated him as a colleague who chose site work because office work didn't fit.

To me, who had thought the words that occupations have no high or low were empty talk only in a morals textbook, this Australian way of thinking was a fresh culture shock as if striking the back of the head heavy.

"Wow... really a tremendous neighborhood, here."

I muttered with a blank face, and looked over again slow this blue-eyed forklift operator from Sydney University, sitting in front of me laughing clear.

The blockage stuck wrestling the stock book seemed it would open in one go thanks to an unexpected tutor.

* * *

At afternoon smoko, I met Peter separate.

I sat side by side with Peter on an empty pallet piled in a corner of the yard.

In the hand a lukewarm can of coffee drawn from the vending machine.

And I spilled to Peter without addition or subtraction about that absurd stock-buying disaster I went through a few weeks ago.

"So, a 4-cent stock called Fortescue, FMG, caught my fancy and I tried to buy. So with CommSec..."

Peter's face was already going bad.

Why?

"No! I didn't spend some million dollars, I spent only a few thousand, and at first from 0.04 dollars to 0.38 dollars, it dropped to 0.09 dollars again, then went up to 0.45 dollars, the price danced like a lunatic? Even the next day trying to buy again, the trade itself didn't work? What on earth is this?"

Peter, who had been listening quiet to my wronged complaint, nearly sprayed the coffee he was drinking, then gave a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded and hit my shoulder, puk.

"Jeong-su, you're really a lunatic."

"What? No, I said I didn't even buy ten thousand dollars?"

"Aigu, even Wall Street speculators with a beast's heart don't jump into Australian penny stock like that. I didn't see the chart or the order book at the time direct, so I don't know the exact cause... but I think I know roughly what you did."

Peter began pointing out from the character of the Australian stock market with a serious face.

"First you have to know the biggest feature of the Australian stock market. Here there's no upper or lower limit on the price rising and falling at all. Whether it rises 1,000 percent in a day or becomes a scrap of tissue, it moves as the market pleases, wild itself."

"Hul..."

Then something suddenly came to mind and I said.

"That... cipher car? Sidecar? Is it? Is there no such thing?"

"Cipher car? What's that?"

"If some stock suddenly shoots up, temporarily stopping the trade."

"Ah. Circuit breaker. There is one that stops trading for twenty minutes. On Wall Street."

"..."

Peter smiled bright and went on.

"In Australia there's no such thing."

"Wow... fuck. Here is real wild."

"Heh heh. I said. The Australian market is a dangerous place."

If forces come in and run an operation, the ants all die, that sound?

Or not? The operation itself doesn't work like that?

"That 4-cent mine stock you bought. Originally a stock like that, no one on the market would have looked at it on ordinary days, so the volume itself wouldn't have been there. The probability is high the circulating shares listed on the exchange and going around itself were tremendously few, or the order book was empty like a desert."

Peter went on explaining, drawing a stair shape in the air with a finger.

"In a situation those two characters joined, you made the decisive mistake. Precisely a market order."

"What's that again? I just tried to buy stock."

"Usually about ten thousand dollars is petty money that doesn't even show on a quality-stock order book. But a penny-stock order book with no volume is different. The volume willing to sell at 0.04 dollars would have been only a few thousand shares, and you commanded the system, 'price doesn't matter, buy all the stock right now!'"

Strength gradually went into Peter's voice.

"Then what would the computer do? Swallow the petty volume at 0.04 dollars, and start searching the upper order book like mad, like a runaway locomotive. 0.05 dollars empty too, 0.1 dollars empty too. Then someone as a joke, or with no thought of selling, 'whatever,' and even the absurd sell volume hung far off at 0.15 dollars, 0.38 dollars, the computer scraped it all like stepping stones and bought it."

The moment I heard Peter's inference, a feeling of fog lifting flash in my head.

"Wow... fuck. So the money I spent forcibly bought all the expensive offers on that empty order book, and forcibly grabbed the price by the collar and pulled it up to 0.38 dollars?"

"Bingo. In stock terms, slippage happened. Your money gnawed the order book all and flew the average price to space itself."

I pressed my forehead in emptiness.

Rushing not knowing the Australian market's rules with shallow knowledge, and the look of making a 900-percent surge chart alone, drumming and playing on that empty order book.

That disaster happened trying to buy only 200,000 shares.

"Then the trade itself not working the next day, what was that?"

"In Australia, instead of a circuit breaker, there's a speeding ticket."

"??? A speeding ticket?"

Peter drank coffee and giggled.

"Heh heh. Right. A speeding ticket. If a stock surges or crashes on the market without a clear reason, the regulator steps in. A price-query disclosure goes up asking, 'your price is suddenly surging abnormal, is there undisclosed good news or inside information leaked to the market not yet announced?' and they call that a speeding ticket. And if a speeding ticket is issued, that stock's trading is stopped until an official answer comes from the company."

"Ah... so."

"Haha. Sometimes looking at you, Jeong-su, you seem helpless. Well, still think positive."

Peter grinned and tapped my shoulder.

I looked at Peter quiet.

This friend... much more help than I thought?

"Peter."

"Hm?"

"So. I want to buy that penny stock a bit more, how do I do it?"

Peter thought a moment, then said.

"Penny stock, better not to."

"Why?"

"The Australian stock market's delisting requirements are very loose. Even a stock with no trading, if you only pay the listing fee every year they don't delist. So most penny stocks are only swindlers holding one mine right with no substance, trying to skim blind investment money. Putting money there... is just flying money."

An ordinary person would have given up hearing those words.

But knowing the future plain, I couldn't not buy either.

"I'm not trying to buy ignorant much either, just exactly 90,000 dollars' worth."

"Why insist on buying that stock."

"Of course it'll rise. China is finishing building the infrastructure of the iron-ore industry now. When China starts stretching proper, Australia's iron-ore industry will explode too."

"But as I know, Fortescue is a so-so small company without even an export terminal... do you have some information?"

"They say the business skill of the owner, Andrew Forrest, is tremendous. Guts that don't know giving up and push like a bulldozer. Chinese investors like this kind of thing."

"But you're Korean?"

"China is Korea's thousand-year rival. Know the enemy and know yourself and you can never lose. Don't know?"

Peter shook his head as if absurd.

"The risk is too big. That's not investment, it's gambling."

"So will you help? Or not?"

"I'll help, I'll help."

"Ooh! As expected Peter, my friend. I'll buy a very tasty dinner today."

"Don't lose money and curse me. And you haven't been in Australia long, where did you learn that weird way of talking?"

"Heh heh. Picked it up on site coming and going."

* * *

Like that, finishing work that day, I took Peter to the agency and began taking the Fortescue position.

"When you touch penny stock on the Australian market, absolutely don't use market. Limit orders, spread a net dense on the floor, and fill the stock quiet picking up what others throw. Got it?"

Seeing the fast hand movement of Peter holding the mouse, the one who learned was certainly different.

Thanks to the insight of reverse-tracking a situation full only of questions with only a few clues, the physiology of the Australian stock market and the rules of trading stuck sure in the head.

Later when the stock rises I'll have to pay an expensive tutoring fee.

Work ended, and in thanks I took Peter to a fine pub in the city and treated him to a thick steak and cool draft beer.

Bumping glasses pleasant and exchanging this and that, I chewed and swallowed a piece of meat and carefully asked Peter.

"Hey, Peter. I don't know Australian manners well, so. What on earth are you? What you did, or what kind of house yours is, may I ask?"

The fact itself of coming out of Sydney University business and driving a forklift was too unreal, so even trying to keep the mouth shut I couldn't stand the curiosity at all.

"Puheup—! Cough! Kek kek!"

Peter, who had sprayed the beer he was drinking refreshing, coughed hitting his chest as if it went down wrong.

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he laughed hearty refreshing, then pointed at me with a finger and said.

"Jeong-su, special advice because you're a friend. In Australia never again ask someone personal family history or house background. That's considered the rudest act here. Got it?"

I nodded at those words.

A Western country that treats privacy like life, so I guessed a question like that would of course tend to be taboo.

"Yeah, it seemed so. Sorry. But really too curious, I can't hold it? Hey, since I was rude anyway. One rudeness or ten, the cursing will be the same, so I'll just solve my curiosity sure and apologize refreshing after."

When I pushed shameless, Peter gave a hollow laugh as if absurd.

He downed the remaining beer and set the glass on the table, tak.

"Haa, a Korean who really can't be stopped. Well... not a secret great enough to hide, so I'll tell you. Our house is one of the pioneers of the First Fleet."

"First Fleet? First Fleet?"

'If people who first pioneered Australia... descendants of British criminals, that sound?'

Thinking so inside and blinking, Peter, reading my face, grinned and went on.

"Under the command of the first governor, Arthur Phillip, in 1788 an expedition of 1,500, convicts and marines and free settlers, first arrived on Australian soil. Half the whole number were convicts, but the other half were naval officers and marines who escorted and managed them, and free settlers. The ancestor of our Davies family was a naval officer then. Settling in Australia, from the fifth generation they ran a ranch on the eastern outskirts of Sydney and took a place."

A fundamental-of-fundamentals family that shared Australia's founding and history.

At that fact I opened my mouth.

"Oh! A tremendously great house. But why is a gold spoon like that out of the house driving a forklift here?"

At my persistent question Peter gave a short laugh and leaned back.

"I clearly warned what you're asking is rude."

"Ah, I know it's rude, but right now the curiosity about you is about to pierce the brain and explode."

"Puhahaha! Hey, friend. Even if you look with eyes that hot, I decline men."

"Yes yes. Don't worry. I like pretty women much more than hairy men too. Heh heh."

A bitter smile spread at the mouth of Peter, who had been exchanging idle jokes.

"Just... I hated the adults' terrible interference and control, stifling. Somehow I entered Sydney University as they wanted, but law or medicine I couldn't go even if I died. So I went to business, and living like a puppet tying a tie was the same. So I threw money and whatever all and ran out on my own feet."

"On your feet?"

"Yeah. I'm not the only odd one in the house."

A moment Uncle Billy's face rose.

"Uncle Billy too, and cases like me who couldn't stand the control are fairly many."

At this time I didn't know the underside of Australian society well, so I thought it an ordinary deviation of a chaebol second generation, but later studying stocks and real estate and grasping Australia's economic structure, I could understand why Peter shuddered and ran out like that.

Australia's chaebol are strict enough to make Korea's chaebol step aside, and how to say it? Blocked tight?

Commonly called old money, or the seven great families, fundamental families that had piled vast wealth from the early founding existed in Australia.

Names like the huge southern ranch MacLachlan, the eastern Davies, the southeastern wine empire Brown, the western mining ruler Hancock, were precisely them.

They owned farms, ranches, mines of vast area, and the way they passed wealth generation to generation was very unique.

In Australia there is no gift tax or inheritance tax.

But they have a punitive tax system where the income-tax rate rises geometric if you earn over a certain income.

So these old-money families, instead of giving the vast profit to one head and taking a tax bomb, used thorough a legal device called a family trust.

By splitting the large profit from the company fine to all the descendants of the family in the form of dividends, they lowered the tax bracket and legally protected the vast wealth.

But this dumbfounding system had one fatal problem.

Precisely that all power concentrates on one patriarch who decides the trust's dividends, an absolute power structure, literally, is made.

"If you want to receive tremendous dividends every year and live abundant, listen to me. University major, occupation, even the person you marry, do as I set. Otherwise I'll exclude you from the trust list right now."

Terrible control holding the house's great and small affairs and the children's whole lives with money as a weapon.

Peter couldn't stand that invisible golden collar, and kicking away the dividends of tens, millions of dollars that fell every year, chose real freedom of catching the forklift wheel himself.

A laborer from Sydney University business who would rather buy a cool beer with money earned sweating by his own strength than be raised locked in a golden cage.

"Keu... a really cool guy, Peter Davies."

Admiring inside, I raised the beer glass pleasant toward the blue-eyed free man sitting before my eyes cutting steak.

"Why? Something on my face?"

"No, just. You're more of a blockhead than I thought, so glad. Let's toast, friend."

A person being clear and straight, there's always a reason.

© Log1#13yd6