Not stock picks: how to read reported numbers. What a share is, why price and value differ, why every figure has a date, and what diversification does.
A share is a certificate of owning part of a company, so its value fundamentally comes from the company's future earnings. The price is set moment to moment where buyers meet sellers, moving with how those people view the future. Today's price is not today's results but the sum of expectations about what is ahead.
A high share price and an expensive share are not the same statement. The price of one share depends on how many pieces the company was divided into, so prices alone cannot be compared. To see the size of the whole company you need market capitalisation: price multiplied by share count. Comparing similar companies also uses multiples of earnings or assets rather than the share price.
Reported metrics are mostly calculated from past results, while price reflects the future. A low earnings multiple therefore cannot be declared undervalued on its own, because the market may expect earnings to fall. Finding why a number is low or high matters more than reading the number.
Concentrating in one name pays well when right, but one company's failure can cause an unrecoverable loss. Diversification is not a device for raising expected returns but for lowering the chance of losing heavily at once. Concentrating assets in the shares of the company you work for is particularly risky, since salary and assets then share the same exposure.
The pieces here explain what indicators compute and what each line of a financial statement means. They do not cover which stock to buy or what phase the market is in. Decisions fitted to individual circumstances and risk tolerance belong with a qualified professional.
The guides fall into three groups. The first is about reading numbers: financial statements, valuation, and indexes and index funds. Learning which numbers describe a company and a market makes everything else much easier. The second covers where money leaks: how dividends work, trading costs, taxes on shares, and the average-cost illusion. The third deals with what sways judgement: behavioural biases, how pump schemes operate, and how IPO subscriptions are structured. You can read them in order or start with whichever answers the question on your mind. Rules and schedules as of October 2026 are covered separately in the guides on market hours, the securities transaction tax, US stock taxes, separate taxation of high-dividend company dividends, ex-dividend dates and circuit breakers, and gold and dollar investing are compared as options outside stocks.
The same terms recur across stock guides and tools. The price-to-earnings ratio (PER) divides the share price by earnings per share and shows how many years of current profit you are paying for. The price-to-book ratio (PBR) divides the price by net assets per share. Return on equity (ROE) is how much a company earned in a year on the money shareholders have put in. All of these mix past results with today's price, and normal ranges vary widely by industry. Rather than memorising a single threshold, use them to compare within an industry or against the same company's own history.
The quote, comparison and calculation tools linked to this topic show figures based on public market data and standard formulas. Quotes may be delayed or briefly missing depending on the data source, and indicators can differ from other sites because of calculation methods and period settings. Any grades or commentary a tool shows are descriptions summarising past data, not promises about direction. Before trading, check your broker's official quotes and company filings, and treat calculations as just one input. Nothing in this topic, guide or tool, is investment advice.
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There are a lot of numbers, but there is an order to read them in. What each statement says.
Dividends are cash leaving the company. Two ways a yield rises, which dates matter, sustainability, tax, reinvesting and common dividend-stock mistakes.
Average cost is easy to compute but says nothing about the future. Why averaging down misleads, the asymmetry of recovery, and how to set rules in advance.
Fair value comes from comparisons or future cash, and small assumption changes swing it. How to read assumptions, work backwards and build a range.
Share taxes in three branches: trading, gains and dividends. How losses are counted, what foreign shares add, and the records to keep through the year.
There are reasons the same mistakes repeat. Knowing where things bend helps you bend less.
Knowing the structure makes the warning signs visible. This is written so you can avoid them.
An IPO subscription runs in several stages. How shares are allocated, how the offer price is set, when lock-ups end, deposit timing and listing-day myths.
Returns are uncertain but costs are certain. The layers of trading costs, the truth about zero commission, what 1% does over time and how to tally a year.
How an index is built, why a few top stocks dominate it, how its makeup changes, and the tracking error and premiums of products that follow it.
You bought several stocks and they all fell together. Diversification is about how independently holdings move, not how many you own.
The share price rose, yet you lost money in your home currency. Returns on foreign stocks come from two things multiplied together: price and currency.
The order screen lists several unfamiliar names. Here is what each order type guarantees and what it gives up.
ETFs with similar names can differ in cost, tracking method and trading conditions. Here is what to check, in order, before choosing one.
Short selling means selling borrowed shares first and buying them back later. Here is how gains and losses arise, how losses grow, and the rules around it.
Common terms from quote screens, brokerage accounts and company filings, grouped by where you meet them, with what they mean and where people get confused.
Make paper trading for US and Korean stocks realistic: market hours, delayed quotes, fee and tax assumptions, separate KRW and USD accounts and next steps.
Build a watchlist board with Korean and US stocks: how many names, laying out the list, checking market hours and quote delay, and looking at set times.
How to calculate and read dividend growth rate, consecutive years of raises and trailing 12-month yield, what feeds growth, and when the numbers mislead.
How buying a fixed amount on a schedule shapes your average cost, when DCA beats or trails a lump sum, which risks it spreads, and how to read the results.
Why stocks, bonds, gold, the dollar and bitcoin move together or apart, why the stock-bond sign flips, rolling correlation and traps in measuring it.
Why portfolio weights drift, what rebalancing does and does not do, calendar versus band methods, how to rebalance, and the costs and taxes involved.
Drawdown and maximum drawdown defined, the asymmetry of loss and recovery, and how to read decline, recovery and underwater periods in real index records.
Testing calendar sayings like sell in May and the January effect with monthly returns, and the traps of small samples, multiple tests and skewed averages.
The Korea Exchange regular session and call auctions, closing-price trading outside hours, the 4–8 p.m. after-market opened on 14 September 2026, Nextrade's timetable, price limits, tick sizes, settlement and holidays in one place.
Trigger levels for circuit breakers that halt the whole market, sidecars that pause only program trading, and volatility interruptions that switch a single stock to two minutes of single-price matching, how they show up on charts, and how the US differs.
Capital gains tax (22% after a 2.5 million won deduction) and dividend tax (15% withheld in the US) on US stocks for Korean residents, how exchange rates enter the calculation, May filing, the difference from Korea-listed ETFs and the 2026 temporary breaks, with examples.
From 2026, dividends from listed high-dividend companies in Korea can be taxed separately at 14 to 30% instead of being added to other income. The eligibility conditions written in the law, the rate brackets, who gains compared with comprehensive taxation, and what to check.
The 2026 rate of the tax charged on every sale of Korean shares regardless of profit (0.05% plus a 0.15% rural special tax for KOSPI, 0.20% for KOSDAQ), how the rate changed year by year, its link to the scrapped financial investment income tax, and how trading frequency drives the cost.
Settlement decides how late you can buy and still get a dividend. The link between record dates and ex-dividend dates in Korea (T+2) and the US (T+1), the post-2023 shift in Korea to fixing the dividend first and the record date later, where to check filings, and common mistakes.
How the won price of gold comes from the international price and the exchange rate, and how the KRX Gold Market (no VAT on trades, untaxed gains), gold ETFs and gold banking (15.4% on gains) and gold bars (10% VAT) differ in tax, cost and physical withdrawal, as of October 2026.
What buying dollars actually bets on, conversion costs, and the tax and risks of foreign currency deposits (untaxed currency gains, 15.4% on interest, deposit insurance), dollar RPs and notes, dollar ETFs and US Treasuries, as of October 2026.