As semiconductor stocks continue to rise, a 1992-born office worker has gained attention for turning her investments into assets worth over 2.6 billion won (approximately $2 million) in just six years.
In a recent post on the anonymous workplace community "Blind," a woman identified as A shared her experience as a "six-year stock investor," expressing her astonishment at surpassing 2 billion won in assets.
A reported her total investment assets at approximately 2.6455 billion won, with domestic stocks valued at 1.996 billion won and a return of 153.14%. Her overseas stock assets amounted to 570.9 million won, yielding a return of 70.84%.
She stated, "I kept two separate ledgers to grow my seed capital. The significant boost came when I started buying Samsung Electronics' HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) and foundry stocks after their prices plummeted in 2024."
A added, "I never sold a single share of the semiconductor stocks I bought. Over six years, my realized gains included an initial investment of about 500 million won. Coming from a 'dirt spoon' background, I don't have wealthy friends to share my success with, so I posted in this community to find others who understand my journey."
In contrast, another story emerged from a worker at an accounting firm, identified as B, who regretted selling all his Samsung Electronics shares last October to purchase a newlywed home. He sold his stocks to buy a house priced at 1.8 billion won but now feels remorseful.
B explained that he liquidated his Samsung shares, worth about 500 million won, to afford the apartment in Mapo, Seoul.
He stated, "To buy the house, I borrowed 900 million won, including a negative bank account and help from my parents. Although the house price has increased by about 100 million won since then, if I had held onto my Samsung shares, their current value would be around 2 billion won."
B lamented, "If I had just held on, I would have had 2 billion won without any debt."
He also mentioned that excluding the money borrowed from his parents, he is paying about 3.8 million won monthly for a loan of 700 million won.
B expressed his frustration, saying, "Even with a monthly net salary of 6.5 million won, I am left with only 2.7 million won after loan repayments, which is a miserable and infuriating situation."
Reactions from netizens to these contrasting stories included comments like, "I believe there are about 100,000 people in Korea who missed out on similar opportunities as B," and "If stocks hadn't risen, people would have been happy about rising house prices."
Meanwhile, as of 9:30 a.m. on May 11, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both reached record highs in early trading.
Samsung Electronics traded at 286,000 won, up 6.52%, and briefly hit a record high of 286,500 won. SK Hynix surged 9.91% to 1,853,000 won, reaching an intraday high of 1,859,000 won.
According to the Korea Exchange, Samsung Electronics received the highest number of individual orders last month, totaling 204,025, while SK Hynix had 142,668 orders, reflecting expectations for a prolonged boom in the memory sector.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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