Smacking his hands on his shins in excitement, Samuel internally clamoured at the system to begin the procedure.

‘System, go! Go! G-‘

[Understood, Host. Preparing to Fast Track to ~2 months later: to the 2nd of November, 2007.]

[3]

‘2… months…

[2]

…later?’

[ :]

“ABORT! Stop! Fuck…!” Samuel shrieked, as his panicked mental state, which had just rebooted from the shock of the unexpected change in information and options, had returned to just about enough of a functional state to have given him the time to reject the proposed time travel.

[Fast Track Cancelled]

Samuel heaved a huge sigh of relief as the subsequent, indifferent system text that appeared before him quelled the unease within his racing heart. He could see that the number ‘one’ had nearly materialised, and thought that it was too late. 

Thoughts of his mother trying to shake him ‘awake’ as he lifelessly sat behind his desk crossed his mind, but he quickly put such a scenario behind him. 

He couldn’t be sure what a 2-month Fast Track would entail, but just the idea of losing 2 months' worth of time in his new life so suddenly was rattling.

Frankly, the young adult wasn’t expecting [Fast Track] to transport him to the future. So far, it had only ever brought items straight to him and had never had him move toward the item. Reflecting on the system’s stunt, Samuel realised the reasons for it doing so: a stock’s prices were at the behest of the entire world’s actions and a CFD wasn’t exactly a tangible asset that one could have materialised in Samuel’s hand. 

He was slightly annoyed at the lack of proper warning about what he was getting himself into from the insentient tool, but he also had to take accountability for his own actions. His impatience and complete trust in a system he had not yet completely learned about and explored had caused him to nearly make a severe error. The spook was a huge reminder to Samuel that just because he had regressed with a system, he wasn’t infallible and should always make informed, unhurried decisions when and where appropriate. 

Although still slightly flustered, Samuel finally got over the little episode- helped by the lingering excitement from having learned he could [Fast Track ] the process of stock trading now. Just the fact that he could [Fast Track] stocks presented a real possibility of exploiting the financial system at large and making big bucks. 

‘But how to exploit it is the question? I don’t want to be waiting 2 whole months just for a single trade to go through. Wait… I also need to work out what happens to me and my body during the actual time.’ 

With a quick glance at the analogue clock on the wall, Samuel decided there was enough time to experiment with at least one more trade before heading off. Based on the previous [Fast Track], he would’ve been able to make 7.90 dollars in profit on his previous trade. This wasn’t a bad amount at all considering the low leverage and the relatively high fees on such a small purchase. 

Doing the math, Samuel found ICBC bank share price had risen by an incredible 27% by November 2nd, 2007. This meant his 50-dollar position had risen to 63.50 dollars. Take away 40 dollars of leverage, and then the 5-dollar transaction fee and the 60 cents of leverage fee and broker fee (at 1% commission per trade), he was left with 17.90. Had he held a position with a leverage of 20:1 instead of 5:1, such a trade would’ve resulted in a 51.60 dollar profit instead of 7.90 dollars, which was roughly a 500% return. 

Leverage magnifies profits and such a fact was why many individuals in his previous life had risked it all only to lose everything.

But for Samuel, the greatest issue with the trade was the time span. He wanted trades that lasted minutes ideally or hours at most. 

‘Actually…! If I can use Fast Track properly, I can allow the trades to close automatically at the end of the day for whatever stock exchange I’m trading on. Provided I know the trade will be profitable, I can leave the trade open without any worries.’ 

Samuel stewed over the thought while sitting on the jet-black chair. He was working out how he could best utilise the fact that he would be able to find out whether a stock was profitable or not against how to trade in the best way to take advantage of such a fact. 

His thoughts lead him down a line of thinking wherein he realised in the pre-2010s, the barrier to entry for stock trading made it almost impossible for individuals with very little capital to enter the market just because they would be bogged down by fees on every trade. And leveraged trading too was a silent but deadly killer in and of itself because it amplified transaction costs out of your account. 

These tidbits of information did not come with Samuel’s average competency. This was useful information he had extrapolated upon actually having entered the market, which he may not have been able to find from just having had the theory. It just went to show Samuel the potential usefulness of something like wisdom in stock trading. 

‘Ok. So I haven’t yet sold my ICBC stock. Let me start from there.’ Thought Samuel, as he began to think of how to address the system about profits. 

‘System, I think I’ll be Fast Tracking to when the Hong Kong Stock Exchange closes in a few hours. Could you tell me how much I’d stand to profit on my trade by then?’

[Negative, Host. The System cannot predict the future.]

‘Huh?’ 

Samuel was confused. He wondered if he remembered if the system had not just predicted the future earlier, when it proposed he fast forward to a time when his stock had a 27% increase, correctly. 

‘What are you talking about? You predicted the future just a few minutes back. Why can’t you do it now?’

[Incorrect, Host. The system did not predict the future but warped to such a future based upon Host’s desires, via the Fast Track vehicle.]

For a minute, Samuel tried to comprehend what the system was trying to tell him. On the face of it, it might have looked like the system had changed the future just to accommodate for his benefit, however, Samuel failed to believe such was the case. Warping the future could have meant any number of things, so he approached the Fast Track from a different angle, proceeding to experiment with the system about how to deal with his stock.

‘System, I’d like to fast forward to a time when I profit by 1% from my stock.’ 

[Would Host like to Fast Track to 12th of October, 2007?]

‘Alright so that works… but, shit. This stock isn’t profitable in the short term.’ Samuel just realised that his math had not been as encompassing as it should have been. When taking into account the fact that the fees took 1.2% + 5 dollars on each trade, a small deposit of 10 dollars with a 5:1 leverage for a fractional share of ICBC bank was just not profitable in the short term. 

‘System, could you fast forward to the time I make the least loss on my trade today.’ 

[Would Host like to Fast Track to 10.24 pm on the 6th of September, 2007?]

‘10.24 pm? Got it. And no, I’ll pass System. Thank you for the help.’ Noting the time he should take out his money, Samuel realised a rather large issue with the plan he had in mind to exploit trades. 

If he wanted to look for a profitable trade via the system, he’d have to do his technical analysis and all which was normal. But then he’d actually have to buy shares before he could interact with the system to find out if the stock was profitable. This would mean every time he bought a stock, he’d incur the 5-dollar fee on opening a position.

‘I see. The 9000 SRP [Stock Trading] Mastery doesn’t look like such a bad deal now, does it? I reckon the additional wisdom would allow me to discern better which stocks to choose and would cut my losses by a lot. Oh well, I’ll work with what I have for now.’ 

While still ruminating over the possibilities for improvements to how he could go about purchasing and selling CFDs, Samuel stared into his reflection on the black screen with the stock price charts fluctuating as though a representation of his emotions in the past hour. 

A/N: Apologies to those of you who don’t enjoy the technical side of things such as in the last two chapters. I endeavour to bring such instances down so as not to bore you with numbers and such, and so that I as the author don’t need to do days of annoying research to write these sorts of chapters. Also, while I have made several corrections already to these 2 chaps, I will be making future corrections too to the [Fast Track] when it comes to stock trades to prevent a sneaky plot hole from forming. 

— — — — — — 

K71Extra

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