{"id":129071,"date":"2026-08-23T07:05:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T07:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/129071\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T07:05:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T07:05:05","slug":"south-koreans-intoxicated-by-stocks-swarmed-market-frenzy-and-lost-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/129071\/","title":{"rendered":"South Koreans \u2018intoxicated by stocks\u2019 swarmed market frenzy \u2013 and lost everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a \u2060vision to give South Korea<\/a> a stock market that reflected its true economic \u2060dynamism, by shedding regulatory taboos and encouraging bolder bets \u2013 instead, it created an investor trauma that could take years to shake.The \u206030 per cent decline in the Kospi benchmark since its June 19 peak has hurt President Lee Jae Myung<\/a>\u2019s government politically and turned the spotlight on an economic system that drove retail investors into poorly understood leveraged products.<\/p>\n

It has also raised questions about how South Korea, a tech powerhouse, can progress to developed market status when it hosts such extreme behaviour by retail investors, known locally as \u201cants\u201d for their tendency to swarm into trades.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately many who entered the market may have suffered severe losses and a majority of them could become so traumatised that they lose interest in investing altogether,\u201d said Jeon Suk-jae, a YouTuber whose investment channel has 3.7 million subscribers.<\/p>\n

In the two months since the market\u2019s peak, Jeon has seen the comments on his channel, which hosts videos like the \u200cone titled \u201cthe entire nation is intoxicated by stocks\u201d, flip from euphoria to gloom, broadly tracking the national mood.<\/p>\n

Beyond the losses \u2013 some realised, some still on paper \u2013 there is a psychological reckoning that the nation\u2019s leaders are dealing with.<\/p>\n

Demand for psychiatric help is rising and other signs of stress are rattling the public. Police in Busan said they had arrested a man in his 20s who is suspected of attempted murder over the stabbing of a YouTuber he allegedly blamed for his stock losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a \u2060vision to give South Korea a stock market that reflected its true economic \u2060dynamism, by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5594,1599,26891,65941,9984,1037,5521,65942,31,9026,7356,335,65940,146,65939,2068,33],"class_list":["post-129071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-blue-house","tag-busan","tag-citi","tag-dalbo-park","tag-eugene-investment-securities","tag-financial-services-commission","tag-hankyoreh","tag-jeon-suk-jae","tag-korea","tag-korea-financial-investment-association","tag-korea-securities-depository","tag-kospi","tag-kwon-soon-kuk","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-leuthold-group","tag-nasdaq","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}