Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection. - Chapter 5: “That Voice…”

“That Voice…”

“Plus seventy-eight thousand yen, huh…”

Lunch break.

I opened my brokerage app on my phone and checked the morning’s performance.

The afternoon session on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had only just begun at 12:30.

From the opening bell, the market had reacted strongly to the government’s freshly announced economic stimulus package—buy orders flooded in across the board.

Several of my trend-following algorithms triggered, locking in profits one after another.

“Guess it’s time to gradually scale up position sizes and add a few more tickers…”

I was lost in that thought when—

“Kousuke, you’re staring at stocks again?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.”

Shingo’s voice pulled me back.

He knew I traded stocks—just not the exact figures.

“Stocks, though… like, what if a massive earthquake hits while you’re asleep at night? Wouldn’t the market crash and you lose everything?”

“Nah, that basically doesn’t happen in my case.”

“How come?”

“I set things up so that anything I buy gets sold the same day. By the time the market closes at three, I’m flat—zero positions, nothing carried overnight. That’s what day trading is.”

“Ohhh. But what if a huge earthquake hits during the day? Stocks would still tank then, right?”

“Yeah. That’s why the program is coded to cut losses automatically once unrealized damage hits a certain threshold. In theory, catastrophic losses shouldn’t happen.”

“Huh… That’s actually pretty cleverly set up.”

Of course, it’s never quite that simple in practice.

If something on the scale of the Great East Japan Earthquake struck during trading hours, sell orders would avalanche.

Liquidity would dry up fast—you’d be forced to exit positions far below your planned price, and the damage could balloon.

“You don’t do FX or anything? I hear ‘FX investing’ thrown around all the time.”

“Nope, not for me. FX runs twenty-four hours—Tokyo, then London, then New York. If you’re in it seriously, you’re glued to charts around the clock. Studying would suffer, sleep would suffer… it’s too much.”

Sure, you could limit yourself to the Tokyo session only.

But in practice that makes consistent profits much harder to achieve.

The really explosive moves usually come out of London and New York.

Most serious FX system traders run full twenty-four-hour monitoring.

Way beyond what a high-schooler like me can handle.

“Gotcha. Well, if you ever make a killing, treat me to something, yeah?”

“If I make a killing, sure.”

I brushed it off with a vague answer.

“Next period is… chemistry. Lab day today.”

“Right. We’ve got to help set up the experiment, so let’s head over early.”

We gathered our things and left the classroom.

As we walked down the corridor, Shingo—of course—launched right back into his favorite topic: the “Top Three Beauties.”

This girl’s skin is so translucent it’s practically glowing, that one’s height is perfect, the other’s bust is a solid whatever-cup… How the hell does he even know these details?

“C’mon, Kousuke—you’re a guy. You’ve gotta be at least a little interested in that stuff, right?”

He grinned and gave my shoulder a playful shove with his own.

Except the push was stronger than he probably intended.

“Ow—hey, you—”

I staggered hard, balance thrown completely off.

At the worst possible moment, a girl came walking toward us from the opposite direction.

My right shoulder slammed into her arm with a solid thud.

A loud rustle—her stack of textbooks and notes scattered across the floor.

“Whoa—sorry!”

The apology came out louder than I meant it to.

Damn it, Shingo, you idiot!

The girl had been bending down to gather her fallen books.

At the sound of my voice she flinched visibly, let out a small “Eh?”, froze mid-motion, and slowly lifted her face to stare straight up at me.

“That voice…”