Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jonpurdy]

My co-teacher regularly checks his stocks through daum.net during his off time. I always glance a bit and ask him how he's doing and how his mood is just to be friendly and humourous.

I just recently looked in detail and it showed that over a one year period he nearly doubled his investment. I verified with him the details (he had almost 1억 invested initially and now it's up to 1.8억) and the time period (a year) which indicates almost 90% gains in a year.

I checked with another Korean teacher who I'm close with and she said that she made about 100% gains in a year (on less initial money since she's younger).

I have zero background in finance. But I know that these sorts of gains are insanely good! And these are just regular teachers, not math geniuses or anything like that.

Can someone shed some light on how this is possible?

[UknowsI]

It is possible because a large percentage of your friends also have stories about uncles and aunts losing all their money and being in debt after some stock market fun. However, most people are more eager to share the stories about their profit.s

There is no free lunch.

[jvalmer]

The fact that virtually every stock in the world was pounded into the ground between October 2008 to February 2009, it didn't take a genius to make money. It's been basically straight up since then. I've taken all money out of the market and just waiting to see what new surprises we may see in the next 6 months. I trade the US exchanges, nothing in Korea though.

[Drew345]

I don't know about the Korean stock market in particular. Their "starting point" of one year ago was just AFTER the second worst stock crash in history. That is the reason the gains appear so good.

I can't find the exact numbers, but the US market went down by about 40% at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009. Since then it has recovered (been propped up by printing money) back to almost original levels. Thus someone investing one year ago could almost double their money today. But someone investing 2 years ago is just now reaching back to the same level.

This effect is magnified because a gain in USA means twice the gain in Korea and a loss in USA means twice the loss in Korea. This is because USA is the biggest market for buying things from Korea.

[jonpurdy]

[cragesmure]

The above posters are right - it hasn't been tough to make a fair amount of money over the past year. Keep an eye out for a possible double-dip recession - 2011 might bring similar such opportunities.

[manofwar]

That sounds right. I invested about a year ago, and that figure is right on. I would not pump any more money into the KOPI now, but I would set an account with a Korean trade company and get it rolling, so your ready for the next dip. There are still a few decent undervalued stocks in the market.

[jonpurdy]

[Epik_Teacher]

If you want to put your money in something, put it in gold or silver at the next price pullback. Korea's economy is very dependant on exports and most places are not doing too well financially now. When they go down, Korea will too. After the market goes down and bottomed is when you want to start cherry picking stocks. Do a Google search for "Korean brokers," you'll find many of them.

[GoldMember]

Dumb luck.

[Koreadays]

[jvalmer]

[manofwar]

I used Hyundai, but transfer my account to Daewoo because they send market trends and stock company information in English dailyM-F. It will take 45 minutes to set it up at the trade house. Another 30 minutes to download the program and personal inf. in your home computer. It's all in Korean so if you don't know Korean then have the trade house print the steps for you. Have fun with it.