Her sudden question flustered Woosung.
“I…I didn’t know. I was busy, I didn’t realize you called.”
“You must have seen you missed a call when you checked your phone later that day, right?”
“Honestly, I have been so busy with the new company I haven’t had the chance to look at my phone at all.”
Shin Semi scoffed a begrudged answer. “Well, I guess I’ll believe you.”
Woosung felt guilty for some reason.
‘Why is she upset?’
Shin Semi ate a piece of steak and explained. “I called you because other KYLO members have been calling me.”
Woosung’s eyes sharpened. Someone called Shin Semi because he couldn’t get a hold of Woosung. He could guess who it was.
“Was it Jung Jinsup?”
“Yes, and there is one more.”
Woosung couldn’t think of anyone. Shin Semi answered.
“Lee Sunghyun. The current KYLO president. He called.”
Lee Sunghyun.
Attorney at the Law Firm Pyunghwa and the second son of the current Korean President.
What did he want?
“Why didn’t you answer other members’ calls? Didn’t you join KYLO to get close to them?”
“For the same reason why I didn’t answer your call.”
Shin Semi replied seriously. “These people are not used to waiting for anyone. They may take it the wrong way.”
Woosung smiled. “I will remember your advice.”
After work, Williams Liam sighed deeply and sat down.
He made another huge profit from the recent transactions.
He already exceeded his goal for this year.
Unless he made a major mistake for the rest of the year, he was sure to get a big incentive. He was grinning happily when someone approached him.
“I gathered the information you requested.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Liam opened the test database ran by Ryan Capital.
New York stock exchange.
Chicago commerce exchange.
These places provided the information on any transactions that happened in their systems for a fee. They couldn’t give away any private information, but they provided which banks or hedge funds were used to make the transactions.
Liam was looking for a specific transaction serial number.
Each trader had a unique serial number. Using this, he planned to figure out who was involved and which algorithm was used.
“Let’s see.” Liam’s eyes flared. He started analyzing the data like a rabid dog. “Let’s first put everything in order based on the serial number, then filter out any transactions involved less than 10 million dollars.”
This reduced the amount of data to half.
Liam used the statistics package R Studio and created a graph with the filtered data.
As he studied it, he picked up the serial number he was looking for.
This trader bought continuously at 13.00’s until it reached 14.20. Afterward, there were no more purchases. When Liam looked at its sell records, it looked like this trader started selling after the rate reached 15.00.
“It seems like it sold everything as soon as it went over 15.00’s. This can’t be based on an algorithm. This kind of all-in technique is too risky to be recommended by any trading system…”
This meant someone made a human decision to do this. Not even the world’s greatest bank Goldman Sachs would attempt something like this.
Liam opened the excel file named “2008-09-10-11.”
A similar thing happened during the financial crisis. A trader bought options right before the Dow Jones dropped.
“It can’t be…” There was no such thing as coincidences in this world. “Who?”
Liam started to get goosebumps. Even the best expert investors couldn’t pull off something like this.
As soon as Woosung arrived at work the next morning, three people looked at him, expecting news in more ways than one. Yoon Gihwan, Park Junwoo, and Kim Yonggun surrounded Woosung and pushed him into the conference room.
“President, we have been contemplating about this project for days.”
Woosung nodded and listened.
“We came to a conclusion. There is no way the three of us could come up with something like a winning stock recommendation function like you did. This meant one thing. It is impossible for us to develop an algorithm for FX margin or currency future.”
Woosung frowned at the word ‘impossible’. He didn’t like the word. Yoon Gihwan noticed Woosung’s expression and added quickly.
“But we haven’t given up yet. We thought about what we can do, and we came up with HFT (High-Frequency Trading). This is our prototype.”
As soon as Yoon Gihwan finished, Kim Yonggun opened a PPT.
“FX HFT Test Results.”
It appeared that they already tested the product.
“If you use this in Korea, there will be some network issues…You aren’t thinking of Korea as the target customer, are you?” Woosung asked.
“No. We already contacted Jonathan in America and installed it at an IDC in California. We learned that compared to making transactions through the Korean server, it is 0.00005 seconds faster.”
Oh?
Woosung was pleasantly surprised. “Then we will report to you regarding the test result.” Yoon Gihwan continued confidently.
Kim Yonggun clicked, and the next slide appeared.
After the presentation, Woosung had to admit his surprise.
“I see that you worked hard on this.”
Yoon Gihwan smiled proudly. “Haha, you have been working so hard on the new algorithm that we thought we can’t just sit around.”
Woosung groaned. He was not working on the algorithm at all, but now it seemed like he had to.
“We will continue to test it and show you the final product before the end of this month.”
Yoon Gihwan added emphatically. “You need to finish your algorithm for us to test it accurately, so please finish it ASAP.”
Woosung was speechless, he had nothing to say back at them, but luckily, someone burst into the room.
“P…President, you need to come out quick.”
“What’s wrong?”
“T…that attorney is here.”
“Attorney?”
“L…Lee Parksung’s son Lee Sunghyun is here!”
Woosung grinned.
‘So he’s here.’