Since when did someone ask me, "What is stock investment?"? I used to say, perhaps to sound a little cool, "Stock investment is about maintaining a healthy tension with the changes in the world."
Actually, that's true.
Since I started investing in stocks, I've become much more sensitive to changes in the world.
As the amount of money invested in stocks grows, so does the interest in what is happening in the world.
In the past, interest was limited to economic matters and was largely focused on domestic situations. However, as investment funds increased, the scope of interest naturally expanded to include not only our society, politics, military, and diplomatic issues, but also the situations in the United States, China, and even Africa and South America.
As my portfolio grew, the breadth and depth of my interests expanded.

--- p.15~16

When many people ask if I've started investing in stocks, I use the expression, "Are you into stocks?"
When it comes to savings, we don't say, "Did you put money in?" and when we buy a house, which requires a larger sum of money, we don't say, "Did you put money in the apartment?" But when it comes to stocks, we say, "Did you put money in?"
It may just be an idiomatic expression, but I think it's because they think of stock investment as a one-time buying and selling activity that 'goes in and goes out well'.
That is, we use the expression “enter” because we think of it as a transaction that starts by buying and ends by selling.
It means that when you go in, you already have in mind what you will come out of.

--- p.18~19

Let's say you invested 1 million won and it turned into 2 million won. In this case, most people would feel regret rather than happiness.
I think, 'It would have been better if I had paid 10 million won instead of 1 million won, or even 100 million won even if I had to go into debt.'
So, in the end, you end up emptying your pockets and even your soul, borrowing money to increase your investment capital, hoping for the same luck as before.
What will happen? Will it succeed? Most people experience significant losses, and only then do they analyze the reasons for their failure and realize they should have restructured their portfolio.

--- p.23

Let's take a look back at the Korean stock market over the past few years.
How many people around us invested in China-related stocks in 2015, then moved on to the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, then settled on blue-chip stocks, then sold them all in early 2018, when the KOSPI index neared 2,600, and then re-stocked in the spring of 2020, reaping the benefits of a sharp decline in stock prices due to COVID-19? It's a bit grandiose, but let's take a look back at history.
How many people in the world are there who invested in the US Nifty Fifty in the late 1960s, went all-in on oil and energy stocks in the 1970s, made profits in Tokyo in the 1980s, and then invested in US growth stocks in the 1990s, then dramatically escaped the millennium bubble in the early 2000s just before it burst, held only bonds, enjoyed the bull market from around 2003 until the financial crisis in 2007, took a break, and then held on to stocks from 2009 until now?
--- p.54~55

Ken Fisher said something great:
“Stock prices reflect three or twelve months into the future, not the immediate future or the distant future.”
This is also called the 'rearview mirror effect'.
Investors are more influenced by what has just happened than by what will happen next.
That shouldn't be the case, but everyone has that tendency.
That's why I often say on TV or in seminars, "Let's just keep looking half a step ahead."
It's neither good to price too far into the future too quickly, nor good to be overly excited or depressed by what's happening right now. I think it's appropriate to adjust your portfolio by looking ahead one or two quarters.

--- p.196

The Biden administration has pledged to invest a whopping $2 trillion in renewable energy over four years.
Here, most countries, including the UK, Germany, and France, have declared carbon neutrality and are actually considering introducing a carbon border tax.
The idea is to impose a sort of tariff on products that emit carbon.
China, with a population of 1.5 billion, has also declared carbon neutrality by 2060 and announced a national renewable energy policy.
The United States, China, and Europe are all investing in renewable energy.
A new ecosystem is being created on a large scale.
Naturally, companies that have already taken the lead or are ready to enter the market will reap huge profits.
Are each country's strategies to develop their industries solely focused on creating a favorable environment? No.
This is precisely because this path is the most effective strategy for restoring employment and revitalizing the economy, which are the biggest concerns.

--- p.277

I think it's time for people to take a hard look at whether they're being too complacent, intoxicated by the current mood, or, on the contrary, worried and scared solely because of the technical aspects of the situation, namely, the fact that stock prices have risen too much over a long period of time.
However, since we cannot rely solely on intuition, we will ultimately have to rely on indicators that include numbers.

--- p.301

The key difference between 2020 and 2021 is that a vaccine was developed.
Stock prices will likely reflect this before we get closer to herd immunity from vaccines.
I think the peak of these vaccine development expectations will likely be around December 2020 to the first quarter of 2021.
Rather, the changes in expectations that the move to normalcy will bring are centered on performance and interest rates.
As mentioned earlier, the expected value of corporate performance has already been fully reflected in the stock price, and since the expected value at the beginning of the year was relatively high, I am not confident about what will happen after the first quarter.

--- p.306

The Korean stock market outperformed the global market for the first time in a long while in 2020.
I think there are good reasons why this trend will continue.
Above all, it is worth noting that the composition of Korea's leading companies is changing significantly.
If we compare our top 10 companies by market capitalization over a 10-year period, there have been significant changes in recent years.
Looking at the current composition of the top 10 companies by market capitalization, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are ranked 1st and 2nd.
Two of the world's leading semiconductor memory companies.
Next are LG Chem and Samsung SDI.
In other words, these are two companies that manufacture secondary batteries, a key component of electric vehicles.
This is something that has never happened before.

--- p.319

Although the recent upward trend in economic stocks is notable, the majority's primary focus is still on growth stocks.
Tesla, Apple, Google, and Amazon will attract more attention.
But are these growth stocks truly the answer in terms of returns? Will the stock price performance of companies in the US energy, travel, airline, or so-called contact businesses significantly lag behind these growth stocks? At least, if we look solely at the annual peak-to-trough returns, I believe cyclical stocks and stocks affected by COVID-19, rather than growth stocks, will outperform.
However, depending on when you buy and sell, the results can be completely different, and the behavior can be completely different depending on the company, so you need to be careful when trading.

--- p.335