Five Years Without Returns: What Han Ji-woo Finally Realized

Investor Han Ji-woo said that from 2016 he invested for five years yet recorded no profit, or losses.

During this period he studied extensively, reading books, taking lectures, visiting companies, and analyzing corporate fundamentals, but he remained stuck, repeatedly gaining and then losing profits.

“I studied stocks for five whole years, and my account was still in the same place.”

Han said that when the whole market was bad it was easier to endure, but the most painful situation was when the market rose and he alone failed to profit.

This situation triggered strong self-blame over his lack of results and impatience.

“When everyone else is making money in the market and only I'm not, it's really painful.”

Han noted that knowing a lot of information and investing well are separate domains.

As his information grew, he paradoxically became swayed by outside information and struggled to decide when to buy and sell.

“What I know keeps increasing, but my judgment only got harder.”

They focused on their own standards, such as the reasons for buying, conditions, position sizing, and post-trade review.

This became a turning point that shifted his view from looking at individual ‘trees’ (stocks) to looking at the ‘forest’ (building an investment system).

“In the end, they talked a lot about criteria, not stocks.”

According to the channel ‘Lee Chae-pi,’ leading stocks change every year as interest rates and industry conditions shift.

Analyzing individual stocks alone makes it hard to control market volatility, so what you gathered last year can become useless this year.

“It felt like starting over every year. When I was a novice, what I'd gathered in year three or year five wasn't used the next year. I think that's why all the years of study left nothing behind.”

The channel ‘Lee Chae-pi’ explained that investors only began to earn returns and gain stability after criteria were set and a portfolio system was in place.

It is important for investors to write down concrete sentences, such as ‘I only buy companies whose business I can explain’ or ‘I sell when the investment idea breaks.’

The answer must be sought anew each year, but once criteria are built, their value accumulates forever.

“Once criteria were set and a personal portfolio was built through them, the system was in place. Of course I wavered a lot, but once that wavering was applied and my own principles formed, my first stock profits began.”

The channel ‘Lee Chae-pi’ stated that investors should recognize that about 80% of their returns come from rising markets.

Experts gradually reduce exposure when the market overheats, whereas novices, driven by FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), often enter late and suffer large losses in falling markets.

In particular, it is easy to make the mistake of abandoning one's criteria once profits appear.

“In the end, about 80% of investors' returns, including skilled investors, come from rising markets. You must know that. It's not because you're brilliant or your stock analysis is good; if you stay only in the leading industries of a rising market, or only bet on the leading market ETFs or the index, you make money from stocks.”

It is important to understand investing's harshness and build metacognition, and to keep reminding yourself of the principles through steady reflection and journaling.

“Internalizing criteria takes more time than you'd expect. In particular, you have to go through the rising, correcting, and falling markets at least once. A cycle can be one or two years if short, two or three if long, and even four or five. Only after going through that do I think principles become firmly internalized.”

When a company he did not understand well fell, he had no grounds to hold on, yet he could not sell; he made the mistake of keeping a company he should have sold simply because it had dropped.

He reflected that this was not a rational response but merely holding on to endure fear.

“There were no criteria at all. Even if I said I had made criteria, they weren't internalized, so when the problem came I had to respond immediately. Principles and criteria are a manual. But I couldn't do that.”

Han said he was advised that it is beneficial for early investors to learn the fear of markets through falling markets.

Statistically, those who started investing in falling markets rather than rising ones tend to survive longer and succeed more greatly.

This is because through experience they learn to understand risk well and learn to be afraid; Han's fellow investors viewed his full-scale investing period as one to two years and evaluated his falling-market experience positively.

“You've only been investing seriously for a year or two, and yet the fact that you went through a crash right from the start is a blessing for you, they told me. Among people who started investing stocks in a falling market and those who started in a rising market, those who started in a falling market survive longer and succeed more greatly over the long term.”

Han pointed out that the people who make the most money in rising markets are those who bet on individual growth stocks, but that they often suffer large drawdowns and psychological damage in falling markets and drop out of the market.

Becoming numb while intoxicated by a semiconductor-led rising market carries a high risk of leaving the market; diversification through indexes, defensive stocks, dividend stocks, and ETFs is a strategy to soften the blow of falling markets.

For sustainable investing, a portfolio sturdy enough to withstand volatility is needed.

“Do you know who makes the big money in a rising market? The people who bet on growth stocks with individual growth potential. But what's their problem? The drawdown in a falling market is big. Many people get knocked out of the market.”

He first earned returns from leaders such as Studio Dragon, then moved funds into small caps like FNC Entertainment, whose returns had lagged the leaders, and tripled his assets.

This approach uses the flow of funds moving from leading stocks to small caps as long as the leading sector holds; it later evolved into a weight-based investing method that finds leading stocks, such as secondary batteries in 2023 and semiconductors in 2025.

“It was created with the rise of OTT platforms centered on Netflix. So I invested in drama production companies. I earned returns in the leaders, then naturally moved into small caps whose returns were somewhat smaller than the leaders. As that sector became the leading one, the assets I held at the time grew about threefold in volume.”

During this period, he witnessed drama production companies' valuations surge alongside the global spread of K-dramas, and he concentrated investments in Studio Dragon, JTBC-related production companies, and FNC Entertainment, recording his first meaningful profits.

“The industry structure was changing after COVID in 2020, so at that time I finally made my first meaningful profit. After five years of flailing, I think this was the period when I truly made meaningful returns.”

Han used a strategy of first securing profits in the leading stock, then sequentially moving into small caps within the same sector whose returns had lagged.

This strategy leveraged the flow in which the leading stock within a sector remains solid, and through it he experienced his asset size growing threefold.

This method could also be applied to finding other leading sectors, such as secondary batteries in 2023 and semiconductors in 2025.

“I earned returns in the leader first, then naturally moved into small caps whose returns were smaller than the leader's. As that sector became the leading one, the assets I held at the time grew about threefold in volume.”

Han explained that after the zero-interest-rate period of COVID-19, he faced a period of rapid rate hikes.

In a market environment lacking a clear growth sector such as AI, he secured a cash position and limited his asset decline to around -30%.

This was the result of applying the criteria and principles he had learned from earlier large downturns.

“The 2022 rate-hike period, when rates rose like now. Back then, because of the special COVID market, rates were extremely low, and then rates rose sharply. I held a fair amount of cash, so unlike the COVID market where I was down 70 or 80%, I was down around 30%. It was a difficult market.”