God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 424: The Market Starts Changing

While most people were still just discussing online, Foster Iron Mine Company had already seen the futures market’s impact on bulk commodities.

The sudden explosion of orders left the entire Foster Iron Mine Company a bit dazed.

Originally, Foster Iron Mine Company’s main orders all came from Roster Territory Group Company and Southern Development Company—these two companies belonging to Viscount Roster.

Roster Territory Group Company needed to produce tons of magic-powered mechanical equipment, while Southern Development Company needed to build tons of new-style houses and the ultra-high-speed rail system.

You could say that right now, over 80% of the steel produced across the continent flowed into these two companies.

Originally, in a sense, these two companies’ orders also determined steel prices.

Due to the relationship between Foster Iron Mine Company and the Church of Technology, these prices were naturally quite reasonable, with almost no adjustments made.

But after the futures market appeared, Foster Iron Mine Company suddenly became incredibly hot.

Maybe because of its huge scale, or maybe because it was the only publicly traded steel company with good credit.

Whatever the reason, in short, Foster Iron Mine Company was swamped with orders.

Even if all the blast furnaces ran 24/7 non-stop, orders were already backed up six months out.

And these orders kept climbing.

Viscount Roster listened to Foster Iron Mine Company’s report, feeling somewhat confused:

"Right now the main steel consumption all comes from the companies under me, doesn’t it? We’ve all signed one-on-one contracts that took forever. My companies don’t need to buy steel from outside."

"In this situation, they’re ordering so much steel—who are they planning to sell it to?"

"It can’t possibly be selling to various countries to make farming tools or weapons, right?"

"That wouldn’t need this much."

Now Foster Iron Mine Company and the old Foster Iron Mine were basically two different entities. When the mine became an open-pit plaza, when countless advanced blast furnaces appeared, their output had completely transformed.

At the very least it had increased several hundredfold.

Now one day’s output equaled a year’s output from before, or even more.

"I don’t know the reason either. In any case, steel prices on the futures market have started continuously rising. I even suspect they’re not even thinking about actually trading steel—they just want to trade their privately owned steel contracts."

The person in charge of Foster Iron Mine Company sighed somewhat helplessly. "Honestly, for our mine this is naturally a good thing."

"After all, we have so many more orders. Besides what we’re producing for you, we can already run at full capacity 24 hours for over six months, and that number keeps going up."

"Their behavior of buying futures and then trading contracts with each other actually has no impact on our mine. After all, only the last person holding the contract must take our steel."

"I came to find you for another reason too. I discovered that any steel appearing on the market now gets instantly bought up by people. You should probably be aware of this phenomenon, right?"

Hearing this, Viscount Roster couldn’t help but laugh and cry. "If I’m not mistaken, these people are trying to artificially create a steel shortage in the market, causing steel prices to keep rising. We don’t need to worry about this... just don’t raise the purchase price for my two companies’ steel."

"Of course, I’m not an unreasonable person. Don’t raise it this year. Next year we’ll set next year’s prices."

Price fluctuations for goods usually followed the rule that prices started rising when goods became scarce.

Even after futures trading appeared, there was no difference.

What Viscount Roster didn’t expect was that when almost all real steel trading was in his hands, these people would still choose to operate like this around steel.

Were they really not afraid of getting stuck holding the steel themselves?

Wouldn’t it be better for them to play with other stuff?

Thinking carefully about it, Viscount Roster roughly understood. Actually, there were quite a few steel tools—soldiers’ weapons, farmers’ farming implements, and other places all needed steel.

In people’s eyes, steel was basically everywhere.

As long as you ignored the especially huge transactions, everything became reasonable.

Maybe those merchants hadn’t realized Foster Iron Mine Company’s output had already transformed to such a huge level?

"Of course. Those people are just playing with contracts. When the contracts expire and they’re holding all that steel with nowhere to use it and dump it on the market, won’t the price just drop back down? When that happens, who else can absorb all that steel besides you? I really don’t want you buying those people’s steel."

The person in charge of Foster Iron Mine Company was pretty straightforward.

"Hahaha, since you’re worried about that, why don’t we sign a longer-term contract? Hmm, how about three years? We’ll set a price now and supply at this price for three years. On our end, we’ll mainly calculate how much steel we need over three years and write it directly into the contract."

Viscount Roster proposed this suggestion almost without hesitation.

This suggestion actually benefited both sides.

At the very least, they’d both have stable trading and goods sources and wouldn’t be impacted by the financial market.

The two hit it off immediately and settled the matter right then.

They’d signed their deal, but steel prices on the market kept rising.

What was even more bizarre was that gradually some weird information started appearing on the Magic Net.

"Suddenly a group of people wants to buy my family’s iron mine at a high price. They’re actually willing to pay 10,000 gold coins for a tiny mine that could only dig out about 200 gold coins worth a year!"

"A new profession appeared on the market. They make a living buying all kinds of scrap iron. They predict that buying discarded weapons and farming tools to smelt down can be sold at several times the price."

"The arrival of the magic-tech industrial era is destined. After research and discussion by relevant professionals in our country’s finance department, we’ve discovered that the most important mine in the magic-tech industrial era is the iron mine. All kinds of equipment, all kinds of facilities, even new-style houses all need to use tons of steel."

"..."

Suddenly tons of news about steel appeared online.

Every single one was good news.

Every single one was about crazy buying.

Even scrap iron collectors could get rich.

They even painted a really rosy picture.

Even people who didn’t pay attention to this stuff couldn’t help discussing it with others in their free time after a few days.