Originally, I was going to start investing when I turned 10 years old, but because I didn't want to work (?), I took some time off.
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I started investing in the US stock market in 2020.
At that time, I had almost paid off my apartment loan and was thinking about investing a bit. After doing some cursory research on the stock market, I realized that the domestic stock market is disadvantageous for individual investors and advantageous for conglomerate major shareholders.
Major shareholders who are executives don't need to worry about stock prices, and their priority is protecting management rights.
If stock prices rise, there are tax issues, so they sometimes intentionally lower stock prices when inheriting or paying taxes.
On the other hand, the US stock market doesn't have a conglomerate system, and if stock price protection fails, the CEO is fired. With 401K, which invests in stocks, it is structured to rise in the long term.
While reading articles about stocks in the old city center, I read an article that said to put half SPY and half QQQ, so I started with that.
I didn't have time to study individual stocks, so I mainly looked into ETFs.
At first, I invested some in clean energy ETFs like TAN or PBW, but after Biden became president (based on the investment amount at the time), I suffered quite a loss and got out. I decided to avoid ETFs that are heavily influenced by policies.
I felt it was a shame to only invest in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100, so I looked into semiconductor ETFs. Among SOXX and SMH, I liked the composition of SMH better, so I started investing 1/3 each in IVV, QQQ, and SMH.
I planned to invest half of my investment amount in individual stocks, buying Nvidia, MS, and Apple at 1/6 each, but I was too scared, so I couldn't do it.
Courage and returns are proportional, but so are losses. It seems that choosing the option that makes you feel more comfortable is the answer.
(The fact that the total amount at the end of the year and the sum of annual profits and losses don't match is probably because I invested in installments.)
Assuming my 2020 investment amount was 100, and showing the remaining amounts, it might be a bit awkward to look at. Anyway, except for 2022, the returns have been pretty good.
So far, the returns are about 45% for the S&P 500, 62% for the NASDAQ 100, and 193% for SMH.
My target return when I started investing was around 50% in 10 years, but I don't even know what that means anymore.
Especially this April and May, I made a huge mistake and the price went up incredibly. The profit until May is about two-thirds of the profit for the previous five years.
During the war, it goes up when AI performance is announced, and it goes up again when negotiations are underway because it's "peace mode."
Unless you're a full-time investor, it seems true that the best thing to do is to put your spare money in good stocks.
Sometimes I think I should have just bought Nvidia with the money from my apartment loan.
If I had been more courageous, I would have sold everything when martial law was declared and bought Hynix.
But wouldn't all those retrospective regrets be meaningless compared to Bitcoin?
My goal is to save for a few more years and make a retirement fund and contribute to my children's wedding expenses.
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Personally, I still don't understand how this kind of investment works.
One company had 100 shares of a $1 stock worth $10,000. One day, the price went up to $2, making it worth $20,000?
But the actual money supply doesn't increase that much, does it?
Asset values keep going up, but people aren't actually going to use all of it. It seems like only the numbers on the books are increasing.
As asset values continue to rise, inflation is fueled and prices go up. If you don't invest, your salary won't even keep up with inflation.
That's why there's a feeling of being forced to invest, which I find repulsive...
