![Park Jin-young [Photo, Waterbomb YouTube channel]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/07/19/news-p.v1.20260719.b77728dfdcac4518817db52b68c2ab7b_P1.png)
"Now is the time. If I had any spare money at all, I would absolutely buy shares in our company." "Don't look one year ahead — buy with three years, five years in mind." (Park Jin-young, November 2023)
Those were the words of Park Jin-young, the singer who serves as the largest shareholder and chief operating officer of JYP Entertainment, when he appeared on the YouTube channel "Shukaworld" on Nov. 19, 2023, urging viewers to buy JYP Entertainment shares in remarks that drew widespread attention.
The comments were widely interpreted as an argument that the stock's decline represented a buying opportunity from a medium- to long-term perspective.
Those who took Park at his word and bought JYP Entertainment shares are now nursing heavy losses. Nearly three years on, the share price has fallen far further — cut roughly in half.
JYP Entertainment shares, which were trading around 90,000 won ($61) at the time, have plunged to the low 40,000-won range, near multi-year lows. The stock once topped 140,000 won. On Thursday, JYP Entertainment closed at 46,650 won. Park's own stake is estimated to have lost more than 100 billion won in value.
After making those remarks, Park spent 5 billion won buying the company's shares on the open market, lifting his ownership stake from 15.22% to 15.37%. The sharp decline in the share price has since wiped out hundreds of billions of won in value virtually overnight.
![Park Jin-young [Photo, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/07/19/news-p.v1.20260719.3bba99eabb244b9f9a52aab96e83577f_P1.png)
Park had framed his advice as a long-term call, saying he was "not talking about looking one year ahead, but three years, five years out." Even so, any investor who bought shares on the strength of those words has since suffered steep losses.
In the period following Park's remarks, JYP Entertainment shares briefly rallied after Stray Kids topped the Billboard charts. Analysts at the time said Park's confident endorsement had also played a role in lifting sentiment.
The collapse in share prices is not a JYP Entertainment problem alone. The combined market capitalization of the major entertainment companies has shrunk by more than 8 trillion won. Hybe, SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment have all seen their share prices fall roughly 40 percent from the start of the year. That stands in sharp contrast to the Kospi, which has risen 61.9 percent over the same period. The decline also far outpaces the Kosdaq's drop of 14.4 percent.
The sell-off has been driven by growing concern that the entertainment industry's growth is slowing as album sales decline. A concentration of investment in semiconductors and large-cap stocks has also been cited as a factor weighing on the sector.
Earnings expectations for the entertainment companies' second quarter this year are also being marked down. Target prices have been cut across the board as well.
park@heraldcorp.com
