“Sell when stock prices fall 7%, buy when they rise 8%”—John Lee says you’ll never make money that way. Is long-term investing the answer?

[Financial News] Experts have advised investors to be wary of panic selling—selling out of fear—when anxiety sets in during a sharp KOSPI downturn. Their advice is to invest in stocks by looking at companies’ value, not their share prices, and to make long-term investing a guiding principle.

John Lee, head of John Lee’s Rich School, offered this advice in a video he recently posted on his YouTube channel titled “If You’ve Grown to Hate Stocks, Watch This Video Before You Decide.” He noted that individual investors tend to react sensitively to stock price fluctuations and said they should be wary of this attitude.
John Lee said, “People still think investing in stocks means predicting prices. We keep forgetting that we’ve invested in companies.” He added, “People think looking at charts or deciding when to cut losses and take profits is investing, but that’s not investing—it’s gambling.”
What he particularly emphasized was “panic selling”—selling shares out of anxiety when stock prices plunge. John Lee analyzed the psychology behind panic selling, saying, “If you’ve invested 10 million won, a 7% drop means 700,000 won is gone. People think another 1 million or 2 million won could disappear tomorrow, so they decide to sell first and see what happens.”
The question is why people panic-sell. John Lee criticized individual investors who panic-sell, saying it is “because they don’t know what they’ve bought.” He explained, “If the company is sound and has plenty of cash, there’s no reason to worry just because its share price has fallen 7%.”
He said, “We should look at why the share price has fallen and whether the company’s competitiveness has changed, but we only look at the price,” advising investors to examine the company’s situation before its share price when prices fall. He also recommended investing a set amount regularly each month.

John Lee added, “Most people buy stocks when they’re expensive and, conversely, don’t buy when they’re cheap. If the company I’ve invested in is sound and a good business, I might buy more when its share price has fallen a lot.” However, he advised investors to avoid putting their money into just one company or a particular sector, such as buying shares in Samsung Electronics alongside a semiconductor ETF.
Finally, John Lee emphasized, “The one thing you should never do is try to time the market. You must never think, ‘The market looks like it’s going to fall, so I’ll sell now and buy again when it stabilizes.’” He added, “It’s impossible to predict stock prices,” and urged investors to look at companies’ competitiveness and develop the habit of investing for the long term.
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