"SK hynix Is Supposed to Be Crashing Today, So Why Is It Rising?"... I Couldn’t Buy Anything Because I Was Too Busy Reading the News [World of Retail Investors]

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[The Financial News] Kim Mi-jung, 37, a pseudonym, once again stared at her smartphone with tired eyes on her morning commute. She was checking the news from the night before.
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On the 20th,the first tab showed reports that the U.S. had seized an Iranian vessel for the first time since the outbreak of the war, among other developments,as tensions in the Middle East were rising again. U.S. President Donald John Trump posted on social media that "an Iranian vessel was seized in the Gulf of Oman," and the Iranian side immediately pushed back, calling it a "violation of the ceasefire agreement." It appeared to be the first case of force being used since the U.S. launched its so-called reverse blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.The second tab wasabout international oil prices.West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) futures for May delivery jumped 7.35 percent from the previous session to $90.01 per barrel, while Brent Crude Oil futures for June delivery surged 6.14 percent from the previous session to $95.93 per barrel by 8 a.m., when Kim was on her way to work.The third tab containeda search history for the won–dollar exchange rate. By the time she checked again after lunch, the exchange rate stood at 1,475.10 won.The fourth tab showed a news item saying thatSK hynix Inc. will announce its first-quarter earnings on the 23rd, and the fifth tab was a stock discussion board on a portal site.After scanning the stream of articles and posts, Kim put her smartphone down.
She decided that "today was not a good day to get into SK hynix Inc."She had been waiting to buy in when the stock corrected, but Monday brought another sigh. SK hynix Inc. closed at 1.167 million won, up 39,000 won, or 3.46 percent, from the previous day.A studying retail investor... the more she learned, the less she could buy
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considers herself a "studying retail investor."She keeps up with economic YouTube channels and reads securities company reports. She also makes a point of reading every related article that could affect the stock market and checks investment communities every day.When she first started investing two years ago, Kim repeated the same regret every day: "I couldn’t buy because I didn’t know." She began studying stocks after a stock she had bought just because everyone else was buying it ended in a complete disaster.
But something strange happened.
The more she studied, and the more she learned, the harder it became for her to buy.That was true even today. When oil prices rise, inflation follows, which is bad for the stock market. Yet the KOSPI Composite Index is holding slightly higher. Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran collapsed, but SK hynix Inc. is rising while Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is falling. The KOSPI Composite Index is nearing its all-time high, so should she buy now and chase the peak, or will it keep climbing if it breaks to a new high? Every news report says something different. No matter how many securities company forecasts she reads, she still cannot feel certain.Treating good and bad news as equally important, she was left out of the bull market
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In investment psychology, this is called
"Analysis paralysis."It is a phenomenon in which too much information makes it harder to make a decision. Kim is exactly in that state.Of course, knowing more is not a bad thing.
The problem comeswhen all information is treated the same.When oil price news, exchange rate news, negotiation updates, and earnings reports all pour in at once, beginner investors struggle to decide which matters more. Because every variable seems important, making a decision becomes even harder.
The solution is simple. Experts advise investors to first establish their owninvestment principles and then choose only the information that fits those principles.If you gather information without a clear framework, it can hinder decisions rather than help them. But Kim hesitates, picks up her smartphone again, and searches the news. Tabs nine and ten open, and more news keeps flooding in. As she keeps refreshing the page, Kim’s investment principles are shaken once again in the confusion, and profits drift farther and farther away.
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bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter