I sometimes get asked: I want to invest, but I have no idea what to study first.

Honestly, I don't know the right answer either, so I usually just toss out, "Put your money into stocks/coins first, and you'll end up studying on your own."

But if I lay out my honest thoughts:

1) Recognize that you live in a "capitalist" world.

Once you move past the simple labor-and-consumption structure, you have to study economics, "just, unconditionally," to understand asset markets. You need to recognize that the salary we receive is a "cost" on the accounting books, and that this is income given by the market, not by the company. There's a hard limit here: labor income alone can never surpass capital income. So it has to be seared into your mind that learning the system to make capital work for itself isn't a choice but a necessity.

2) Studying asset markets begins with understanding the growth of the "money supply" (inflation).

This keeps you from falling into the trap of becoming a permabear/crash-monger, and helps you understand the upward march of scarce assets (which absorb the money supply). I believe the first step is to understand the fundamental principle of why modern capitalism has no choice but to increase the money supply through debt.

3) After that, deepen your understanding of the market's "low-risk returns."

This is where you get to grips with "bonds." You come to see that bonds carry both a yield and a risk tied to the concept of "time." Bonds become the reference point for every other asset. With bond yields as your benchmark, you can gauge how much riskier other assets are and how much higher a return you can expect from them.

4) Now try to understand interest rates.

Look into what factors move interest rates, and why rates get raised and lowered. And look into the correlation between interest rates and bonds: why, when rates fall, bond prices rise. Once you understand this principle, other assets slowly start to come into view.

5) Study when rates are raised and lowered, and the resulting quantitative easing/tightening.

The quantitative easing (QE) by which a central bank releases money into the market is like pouring oil on the asset market, and the quantitative tightening (QT) by which it withdraws money is like putting out the fire. I believe you have to know this mechanism to read the market's big-picture direction.

6) Once you understand interest rates, next you can understand real estate.

You come to see how the lease-deposit-to-price ratio, the deposit-to-monthly-rent conversion rate, and changes in supply and construction unit costs, all driven by interest rates, affect market prices. On top of that, as you trace demand through past data, and especially the price trends created by private housing supply, a picture starts to form, hazy though it may be. (*For real estate, I think it's best to study in the order of basic terminology → reconstruction → redevelopment → auctions.)

7) And understand that real estate is a "regulated industry."

Take an interest in the government's real-estate regulations and lending policies, and follow how real estate (especially in the Seoul area) reacts. If you go back through past cases of how the government has fought and compromised with the market to rein in Seoul-area real-estate prices, you start to develop an eye for the real meaning hidden behind the news.

8) Deepen your understanding of stocks.

I'm no expert either, but I think what has a high probability of success is riding the trend of stocks that lead future industries over the long term. (AI, crypto, quantum computing, shipbuilding, defense, power/electricity, and so on? Anything that's drawing the market's attention within a big trend works.) And study valuation, too, through financial statements/income statements/cash flow.

After that, I think it's good to take a look at technical analysis too, since charts contain investor psychology. Still, I'm against taking up chart study for the sake of short-term trading.

9) And then deepen your understanding of commodities.

Look into how commodities such as gold, silver, copper, crude oil, and rare earths affect the economy, and why gold established itself as a store of value. Understanding why gold has survived for thousands of years is, conversely, a way to understand the essence and limits of the paper money (fiat money) we use.

10) And I think this is about where "coins" come in.

Start with Bitcoin. Get a handle on things like the background of Bitcoin's birth, why it holds its rock-solid No. 1 spot in coin market cap, and why it's called digital gold. Isn't the reason you check economic indicators while investing in coins, and laugh or cry at Trump's remarks, exactly why this comes near the very end? The coin market is, after all, where all the macroeconomic knowledge you studied earlier gets reflected in price most sensitively and immediately.

11) Finally, I think "geography" underlies all of this.

Follow global supply chains and geopolitical risks. As you come to understand why a particular commodity is produced only in a certain place, why the world shakes when a chokepoint of maritime logistics is blocked, and that all economic activity ultimately unfolds atop the physical space called "land" amid the interests of various nations, your investment perspective seems to broaden.

To sum up, my personal priority order is:

understanding capitalism → the money supply → bonds → interest rates → real estate → stocks → commodities → coins → geography.

The truth is, if you dig like crazy into whatever field interests you, it all turns out to be connected. But if you can't get a feel for it, I wonder whether this isn't an efficient set of stages for studying investing.