Watching the business news first thing is a new routine for 12-year-old South Korean Kwon Joon, as he dreams of becoming the next Warren Buffett after earning stellar returns of 43% from a hobby picked up just last year: buying stocks.

Kwon pestered his mother to open a retail trading account last April with savings of 25 million won ($22,400) as seed money, just as the benchmark KOSPI index began recovering from its biggest dip in a decade.

“I really talked my parents into it, because I believed an expert who was saying (on TV) that this is a once-in-a-decade opportunity,” said Kwon, who rode the steepest jump by year-end among MSCI’s country indexes..

“My role model is Warren Buffett,” he added, in a reference to the U.S. billionaire investor.

“Rather than short-term focused day trading, I want to keep my investment for 10 to 20 years with a long-term perspective, hopefully to maximize my returns.”

-REUTERS