NOVEL NEXT Entry 34: Same Day Delivery… Or Not [01]
Arc 3 (Part 2): Bread Winning
[Name: Hazel Hawthorne]
[Age: 17]
[Sex: Female]
[Relationship Status: Single]
[Body Count: 0]
[Obedience: 5]
[Favourability: 5]
[Lust: 3]
[Height: 175 cm]
[Weight: 57 Kg]
[Cup: B]
[A patricidal orphan who finds solace in atypical activities and going against the norm e.g becoming proficient in mixed martial arts. She has gained an avid interest in Host despite her indifferent attitude at school and is looking forward to future abnormal behavioural changes. View additional information…]
‘Patricidal… What the fuck?! So she’s killed her own father... Wow. The rumours of her being dangerous aren’t exactly unfounded then, huh?’ Though he thought along those lines, he doubted anyone actually knew of her misdeeds. Otherwise, the boys would find her less of a ‘mysterious beauty’ and more of a ‘deranged psycho’.
‘But she’s not behind bars, so there’s got to be some backstory behind it. And honestly… it’s kind of hot. Sort of adds some substance to the rebel bad-ass punk girl image I have of of her. I can imagine her cornering some pedophile in an alleyway and throwing a roundhouse kick at their faces before stepping on their nuts with heels on… hehe. Fuck… that’s so stupid.’ Shaking his head at his antics, he realised he had foregone the fact that she was a bonafide murderer, because of the line regarding her ‘interest’ in him. It wasn’t so much the fact that he cared for the high schooler’s attitude toward him, though he was slightly intrigued why so, but that his behavioural changes had already been noted.
‘To be fair, I haven’t been hiding my disdain for the high school life, and nor have I been acting as I did in my previous life with my family, so it shouldn’t really matter. I assume everyone at school will think I just grew a backbone of sorts over the summer.‘ Disregarding the worry since he wasn’t transmigrated into some sci-fi fanfic where his every behaviour could be tracked and traced, Samuel continued to observe the information on Hazel.
She was a tall lass. With the height of Polarian’s being only slightly above the world average, he assumed she could get into modelling with her tall frame coupled with her long legs and thin waist. And while they were a tad smaller than the women he had ‘status’ed thus far, her modest breast size complemented her figure quite well in his humble opinion.
Besides her status, however, he reckoned the fact that he could view additional information was because he had levelled up, but he put that thought aside for now as the brief history was enough to satisfy his curiosity. At the end of the day, the eccentric girl was but an afterthought compared to the stocks he was planning to indulge in at home.
While mulling over the contents of Hazel’s status, the young man rushed back home so he could get started on his money-making escapades.
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Finally, Samuel had reached his dingy bedroom. It wasn’t in the same state as it had been pre-regression- mostly because his mother would occasionally frequent his room to clean up and also the fact that he’d moved out into a single-bedroom apartment a few years after her death- but Samuel still couldn’t fathom how unclean of an individual he was. At least when he was morbidly obese, he couldn’t actually view the floor over the rolls of fat on his stomach.
With the curtains only half drawn, allowing but a minuscule amount of light into the bedroom, Samuel had his hands on his hip as he inspected the interior of the large 10” by 10” room.
His bed hadn’t yet been made with the duvet being strewn across the bottom half. His desk, which was almost entirely occupied by the PC setup, had an untidy assortment of wires coagulated behind it. And while Samuel was unable to see it, his windows were quite grimy too. Not to mention the fact that the last time he had properly aired out his bedroom was a while back, so it smelt like a man cave.
‘Sheesh, I need to get this dump cleaned up. It’s a new life, and I’m going to be working for hours on end in this room so I should really have a fresh start in the cleanliness department, shouldn’t I?’
[Ding! Mission has been generated!]
[Mission 5: Make your bed every morning for the next 7 days]
[Reward: +0.5 ml Sperm Load]
[Time Limit: 1 week]
[Mission Type: Chain (1/5)]
‘Sperm load? What the hell.’ Samuel wasn’t about to complain, since an improvement, no matter how incremental, was still progress. What intrigued him the most, however, was that it was a chain mission, leading him to wonder if the rewards would progressively get better for each subsequent mission.
While he waited for his computer to boot up, he made a preliminary move to clean the dump by pulling open the curtains to let the autumn sun into the room, and haphazardly throwing the clothes strewn all over the floor and on the chair into the cupboard. Old habits weren’t going to go away so easily, but that was why the young man had a system.
Once he was in, Samuel booted up the online platform from which he could analyse his stock charts which changed in real-time (if you disregarded the latency brought about by the slow setup), and where he could make his purchases.
While the knowledge instilled within his mind was basic, it was holistic. He felt like he knew a bit about everything, but not the specifics ins and outs.
For example, when it came to trading on a short-term basis, Samuel was aware he would either trade in CFDs (contract for differences) or spread bets. He could trade in ETFs (exchange-traded funds), however, this is where the knowledge he had would need to be applied to further his goals and intentions.
Samuel had basically 0 Polarian dollars in his bank account, and any borrowing from his credit card would need to be paid back ASAP as he wasn’t too fond of the idea of being in the red and having to constantly pay back what he borrowed. It could be reasoned that his mindset was quite different compared to the average westerner, but his life experiences were also very different as a 38-year-old turned teen.
Now, as he had basically nothing, his main goal was to build a small amount of capital or liquid cash- he needed the ability to exchange his assets for cash.
The charm of trading in ETFs was the fact that you could buy an actual asset, which would become a part of your portfolio. Unfortunately, this would also incur an additional tax on one’s possessions- something which Samuel was actively avoiding.
Therefore, the young adult was only left with two other options. And taking into account the pros and cons of each, while factoring in his newbie status as a stock trader, Samuel chose to try his hand at CFDs trading- at least for the next few weeks while he got used to things.
‘Wait… from the information I received, it said I should first get to know the markets first, and what individual stocks I’d like to trade.’
Realising he had jumped the gun a little by planning to make trades right away, Samuel immediately got to researching his target stocks and sectors. One of the pros of CFD trading was that it gave the investor a wide range of markets and financial instruments to tap into. This allowed Samuel to look into some of the more volatile sectors and base his research on what stocks to day trade from that.
So for the next few hours, Samuel looked into a few stocks and checked for their volatility, liquidity, volume, reported earnings and trading interest. He had also screened out many stocks by checking their daily average volume of shares, indicators that suggested decent enough intraday movements, and whether they were available in his brokerage account.
Samuel’s brokerage account was a Polarian (POL) account. As CFD trading was legal in Polaria, Samuel wouldn’t have to worry about making use of loopholes in CFDs. This was also the case in the UK, though the US was tighter on such a financial instrument as it was an over-the-counter (OTC) product, meaning it didn’t pass through regulated exchanges. In the event of capital gain, you could get away with avoiding paying a tax on it, and in the event of a stock of yours tanking, you would have an (illegally in the US) reportable capital loss, even though you haven’t lost any money.
With the bits and pieces he could gather from his research on the prehistoric form of the internet, and having sifted through his average knowledge of stocks, Samuel found he was taking an interest in the financial sector.
As most stock exchanges were closed in the western world at this time of day in Polaria, Samuel accessed the Hong Kong stock exchange and found the ICBC bank had higher intraday movements than other banks, with a substantial volume of upwards of 5 million shares exchanged each day.
As it had been several hours since Samuel had arrived home from school, he decided to try his hand at a trade or two before he deemed it fit to go downstairs and start working on dinner- a past time he had grown to enjoy the last couple of days as opposed to feeling obliged to take over his mother’s duties.
He had 1000 Polarian Dollars in his brokerage account. He bought a 10-dollar fractional share of ICBC (with a share price of 6.81 CNY- Chinese Yuan) with a conservative leverage of 5:1, which allowed him to hold a 50-dollar position. Upon setting a risk:reward ratio with his take profit and stop loss at 4, Samuel just stared blankly at his screen, as he eagerly awaited the rise of the stock, from the rough pattern analysis he made.
He sat up on his chair with his legs propped up against his stomach and his arms wrapped around them with his head half-buried into his track bottoms as his dermatophagia kicked in as he awaited the nerve-wracking changes to his $10. Even though his rounded stomach prevented him from being able to sit comfortably in such a position, Samuel was taking liberties in this lifetime, as sitting like he currently was would have been impossible in his previous life. What better way to make money, than by doing the unthinkable at the same time?
The seconds ticked by, as the candlestick bars flickered between red and green on his screen, and Samuel grew slightly impatient. He looked up at the clock which was right above his PC setup and spied that it was currently 7.30 pm.
‘Sheesh, I should’ve opened a position later in the night, instead of hoping for it to have some changes before mum gets back home. I just wish I could, I don’t know, fast forward to whenever the stocks are worth significantly more than what I bought them for.’
Upon Samuel realising his inner desires, a sudden luminescent blue pop-up window appeared in front of his view, breaking his immersion away from the stocks which occupied his mind.
[Ding! Would Host like to Fast Track to the time when the stock is worth 27% more than at the time you bought it?]
‘…’
‘I can [Fast Track] stock trades too?!’
A/N: Warning! Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. ~80% of retail investor accounts lose money when spread betting and/or trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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