"President Lee's Oct 13 message encouraging people to live and call 109 was replying to news of declining suicide rates (largely from debt improvements), not the KOSPI drop on Oct 15."
Hard to believe that when trillions of dollars has been wiped out. Average Korean retail equity investors have been trading with leverage that would make WSB blush.
> Na Se-bin has lost all sense of the value of money.
Since January, she has poured nearly all her life savings, roughly $47,000, into the stock market, lured by a global AI boom enriching tech powerhouses in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
Riding wild market swings, the 24-year-old South Korean software developer said she has won and lost the equivalent of a month’s salary in the span of a second. Despite the risk, she can’t resist—not after seeing some of her holdings double in price. Over the past 18 months, South Korea has been the world’s top-performing stock market, and Na and her co-workers joke they should sell their underwear to buy more shares.
“Even friends who have never touched stocks are getting into it,” Na said. “Everyone’s doing something.”
Like with gambling, money used for the stock market, should be money you can afford to lose. Otherwise, put the money elsewhere.
They are in fact gambling it. Betting on margin like it's 1928. These are not investments, this is a casino.
"President Lee's Oct 13 message encouraging people to live and call 109 was replying to news of declining suicide rates (largely from debt improvements), not the KOSPI drop on Oct 15."
Hard to believe that when trillions of dollars has been wiped out. Average Korean retail equity investors have been trading with leverage that would make WSB blush.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EKS11/ (1YR chart)
South Korea's KOSPI closes at 6-month low as chipmakers slump on AI worries - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-kosp... - October 14th, 2026
South Korean investors suffer US$1.7B losses from leveraged ETFs - https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/capital-m... - October 7th, 2026
Chaos in Korea's market is sending shockwaves through US chip stocks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50075817 - October 2026
South Korean leveraged ETF trading plummets under new curbs - https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/capital-m... - August 4th, 2026
Crazy Rich Returns Lure Cabbies and Even Kids to Red-Hot Asian Markets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48682095 - July 2026
> Na Se-bin has lost all sense of the value of money. Since January, she has poured nearly all her life savings, roughly $47,000, into the stock market, lured by a global AI boom enriching tech powerhouses in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Riding wild market swings, the 24-year-old South Korean software developer said she has won and lost the equivalent of a month’s salary in the span of a second. Despite the risk, she can’t resist—not after seeing some of her holdings double in price. Over the past 18 months, South Korea has been the world’s top-performing stock market, and Na and her co-workers joke they should sell their underwear to buy more shares. “Even friends who have never touched stocks are getting into it,” Na said. “Everyone’s doing something.”