韩国股市的故事：今年涨了78%

Today we're talking about a news story — about Korea.

More precisely, about the Korean stock market.

Lately, something huge has happened in the Korean stock market.

Have you heard the word "stock market"?

The stock market is where people buy and sell stocks.

So what is a "stock"?

Let me explain.

Imagine a big company.

For example, Samsung.

Samsung is huge — it makes phones, TVs, and chips.

Hundreds of thousands of people work there.

If you wanted to buy the whole company, you couldn't.

The company is too big.

Even all the rich people in the world combined might not be enough.

So what do you do?

The company breaks itself into many many pieces.

Each piece is tiny, and each piece is cheap.

You buy one small piece, your friend buys one, I buy one.

Slowly, all of us together own the company.

Each one of these small pieces is called "one share."

Many shares together are called "stock."

The place where people buy and sell stocks is the "stock market."

OK.

Now you know what a stock market is.

Let's talk about Korea.

Korea's stock market has a name — KOSPI.

KOSPI is English.

In Chinese it's called the "Korean Composite Stock Price Index."

Long name — don't worry about remembering it.

You only need to know this:

The higher the number, the more Korean companies are worth.

And the happier Korean people are.

At the end of last year, KOSPI was around 3,000-something points.

Early this year, it hit 4,000-something.

Then 5,000, 6,000, 7,000.

By early May this year, it hit 7,500.

What does that mean?

It means:

If you had 1,000 yuan in stocks in January,

now it's about 1,780 yuan.

Up 78 percent.

This gain is the highest in the world.

Higher than China, higher than the US, higher than Japan.

Higher than everyone.

Korea has become the hottest stock market in the world this year.

So why did this happen?

There are a few reasons — I'll go through them one by one.

The first reason is chips.

What is a chip?

It's the most important little thing inside electronic products.

Without it, phones don't work, computers don't work.

Right now, the whole world is doing AI.

What is AI?

It's making computers learn things, making computers think like people.

Making computers write, draw, and answer questions.

Doing AI needs a huge amount of chips.

Ten times more than before, a hundred times more than before.

So who makes these chips?

A lot of them are made in Korea.

Korea has two big companies that are the best at making chips.

One is Samsung Electronics, the other is SK Hynix.

These two companies made enormous amounts of money this year.

Take Samsung — their Q1 profit this year was eight times last year's Q1.

What does "eight times" mean?

It means: where they made 1 yuan last year, they made 8 yuan this year.

When money comes in, stock prices go up.

Samsung is up 82 percent this year.

SK Hynix is up 70 percent.

These two companies alone make up about half of KOSPI's weight.

So when they go up, the whole KOSPI goes up with them.

The second reason is reforms by the Korean government.

The Korean stock market used to have a nickname — "the Korea Discount."

What is "discount"?

It means cheap.

For example, in other countries, an equally good company sells for 100 yuan.

In Korea, it only sells for 70 yuan.

Why was it cheap?

Because people felt Korean companies didn't want to share profits with shareholders.

The money the company made all went to the boss.

Ordinary stockholders didn't get a share.

This year, Korea's new president is named Lee Jae-myung.

He pushed through some reforms.

He said companies have to share more money with shareholders.

He also launched a plan called the "KOSPI 5000 Plan."

The idea was to push the market to 5,000 points.

The result?

Not just 5,000.

It went straight to 7,500 — more than doubling the target.

The third reason is that everyone is buying.

Foreigners are buying, and Korea's rich people are buying.

Prices keep rising, so more people want to buy.

More buying pushes prices higher.

And so the market keeps going up.

That's the story of the Korean stock market.

Sounds amazing, right?

But this story also has a darker side.

A lot of ordinary Koreans haven't made money.

Why?

Because they didn't buy.

Or they bought, but they sold long ago.

They thought it was too expensive, so they sold.

After they sold, the stock kept rising.

Rising while they watched, painfully.

The ones who made money are the rich.

And the foreigners.

And the people who held on the whole time.

Ordinary people missed it.

So now, Korea has a new word.

In Chinese it translates to "envy tax."

It means: watching others get rich while you're left out hurts.

And that hurt is its own kind of "tax."

There's one more thing to watch.

Recently, a big bank — Deutsche Bank —

said: the Korean stock market is no longer cheap.

On the contrary, it's getting expensive.

Up too much, up too fast.

When will it fall?

Nobody knows.

But history tells us: things that rise too fast eventually slow down.

We don't know what's next for Korea's stock market.

Maybe it keeps rising, maybe it drops a bit.

We'll wait and see.

And that's our story for today.

We learned: what stocks are, what a stock market is.

Korea's KOSPI is way up this year.

Why is it up?

Because of AI, chips, and reform.

Who made money?

The rich, and foreigners.

Who didn't?

Ordinary people.

That's the world.

Not every story is a happy story.

And not every event is that simple.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow.