Chapter 30: The First Buys (October 1940)
October 1940. This was the month the Continental Bank stopped planning and started acting in the open market.
The previous month's hard work meant the bank had its marching orders: buy 10% of The Coca-Cola Company. They also had their seed money: the $150,500 of pure income earned from the Boeing dividend, which Arthur had reserved as the initial capital for this stock operation.
Arthur gathered the small Sales & Trading (S&T) Division in their new, quiet office near Wall Street. It was a tiny room, but it had the crucial, direct telephone lines.
"The rules are simple," Arthur told the two young traders. "We have $\mathbf{\$ 150,500}$ to spend. This is not for one day. This is for the whole month, maybe more."
He drew a graph on the small chalkboard—a simple line that was currently flat.
"Most traders move the stock price when they buy," he explained, pointing to where a huge spike would be. "They buy 10,000 shares at once, and the price jumps. We will not do this. Our goal is to buy at the current price, without the seller knowing we exist."
The Art of the Invisible Trade
The S&T team's job for October was to be completely invisible.
Every morning, Arthur gave them a very specific limit: "Today, you will buy $1,500$ shares of Coca-Cola. That is the volume. Your main goal is not to get the lowest price, but to keep the average price from moving more than a penny."
The traders had to use Arthur's secret methods from their training:
Bit by Bit: Never buy more than a few hundred shares at once.
Use Different Brokers: Use five or six different brokerage houses on the street. No one broker should see the pattern of a single buyer placing huge orders.
Spread the Time: Buy small amounts in the first hour, then wait, buy again mid-day, and finish near the closing bell. This made the buying look like many small, random investors.
This process was slow, difficult, and required intense focus. Every day was a battle against discovery. If they bought too much too fast, the price would rise. If the price rose, the remaining shares they needed to buy would become more expensive, and their $150,500 would buy less than 10% of the company.
"Patience is our money," Arthur reminded them constantly.
Tracking the Money
Over the first two weeks of October, the S&T team successfully used approximately $75,000 of the available capital. They bought shares every day, using the method of the quiet buy.
Arthur kept a precise ledger.
Total Initial Capital (from Boeing Income): $\mathbf{\$ 150,500}$
Total Shares Acquired (Mid-October): $\mathbf{15,000}$ shares (Roughly $1.5\%$ of the target)
Total Spent (Stock Expenditure): $\mathbf{\$ 75,000}$
Remaining Capital: $\mathbf{\$ 75,500}$
Crucially, the price of the stock had not moved up, despite their steady purchases. The stock was currently trading at the same price as when they started. The S&T team had performed perfectly.
Elias was impressed but worried about the speed. "At this rate, Arthur, we will not hit 10% for six months. The war in Europe is moving fast. We need to be fully positioned by the New Year."
"The market is a slow beast, Elias," Arthur replied. "We must feed it small pieces, or it will wake up and charge us twice the price. We must use our discipline."
By the end of October, they had spent almost all of the remaining initial income.
Total Stock Expenditure (End of October): $\mathbf{\$ 148,000}$ (leaving a small buffer for operational costs)
Total Shares Acquired: $\mathbf{30,000}$ shares (Roughly $3\%$ of the target)
Arthur was satisfied. The S&T division had executed the first phase of the stock operation perfectly, confirming Arthur's methods worked on Wall Street. The bank now quietly owned 3% of Coca-Cola, and the market had no idea.
But as Arthur reviewed the final trading reports for the month, he saw something that stopped him. It was a faint, almost invisible signature in the daily trading volume.
"We have been quiet," Arthur whispered to himself, looking at the numbers. "But someone else has been just as quiet."
He saw a pattern of small, careful sales happening just before or just after Continental's buys. It wasn't enough to move the price, but it was enough to smooth out the market and make Arthur's buying look normal. It was a counter-buyer, or perhaps a large, disciplined seller, who was acting with the same precision as his own team.
Arthur Vance, the man from the future, realized he was not alone in the shadows. He had a ghost partner in the market. A strange, quiet pattern was emerging.