Ant-Man and the Nasdaq: A Journey of Stock Investing

In the Marvel Universe, heroes like Iron Man and Captain America are well-known, but Ant-Man’s story is unique. He’s a petty thief who tries to live a normal life by stealing a suit while robbing a safe and becoming a hero. Similarly, in Korea, individual stock investors with little power are called “ants.” This is the story of an ordinary employee who knows nothing about stocks, becomes “Antman,” and starts investing in American stocks.

My Journey as Ant-Man Begins

I decided to invest in stocks and created a stock account at Toss. I made a good move to buy Nvidia stock, but ended up stuck in an infinite “reserve” loop. However, the infinite “reserve” loop was my mistake as I did not know the US stock market opening hours. I eventually became a shareholder of NVIDIA and rode the roller coaster of stock prices.

NVIDIA: The Symbol of “Overwatch” and “Battleground”

People who played games in school in the 2010s would have played both Blizzard’s “Overwatch” and PUBG’s “Battleground.” As these games became more popular, the Korean PC market changed rapidly, and improving graphics performance to match high-end games became a major trend. NVIDIA was the one that received the most attention at that time.

In my memory, NVIDIA was just a company that made graphics cards needed for high-end gaming. However, as time went on and graphics cards continued to sell out due to cryptocurrency mining like Bitcoin and Ethereum, I listened to Nvidia again. But for me, NVIDIA was still just a company that made graphics cards.

Discovering the Real NVIDIA

As an NVIDIA shareholder, I wanted to know what kind of company I invested in. So I started searching on YouTube. Among the Korean explanations, Kyunghyang Shinmun’s YouTube video titled “NVIDIA, Every Company in the World” was a video that made it easy to understand the history of NVIDIA.

Watching the video, I thought, “Is this the Nvidia I knew?” I wanted to know more. How could a graphics card made for high-end gaming combined with a new technology called artificial intelligence become indispensable equipment and technology?

Learning from Tech YouTube Channels

I found a tech YouTube channel I liked to watch at a time when smartphone processors were seeing significant performance improvements every year. As an “NVIDIA shareholder,” I came in after a long time and found a lot of interesting content.

Watching the videos, I could see that NVIDIA’s goal was simply to “make a graphics card for the best graphics in the world,” but by accidentally combining it with artificial intelligence technology, it became “the number one company by market capitalization.”

Which Stocks Should I Buy?

After becoming a shareholder and looking into Nvidia, I felt that “stock investing is not for everyone.” It’s an obvious statement, but it seemed like the right answer was, “If you know nothing, you’ll be brave, but if you know something, you’ll be afraid.” Instead of blindly buying hot stocks, I suddenly felt like I should find out what kind of company it was and invest in it.

Investing is a really difficult task… Questions like “Why do people have a hard time buying stocks?” have never left my mind. At the same time, I also asked myself, “How should I set a stock goal?”

However, after a while, I thought, “What stocks should I buy besides NVIDIA?” I started to worry. The reason was simple. Because, as if by beginner’s luck, NVIDIA stock started to rise! And so, the Ant-Man rollercoaster ride on NVIDIA stock price begins in earnest…