Korean retail investors are really losing badly. There are even people in Korea who have lost so much in the stock market that they’re ending up on the rooftop. Do you remember my previous aphorism? In June I said: Before every bubble bursts, Korean retail investors are never absent.

Korea’s benchmark index triggered the trading halt yesterday as it dropped, closing down a brutal 8.95%. From its peak of 9,385 it has already plunged 30%, entering a technical bear market.

The headline memory-chip maker Hynix has fallen a total of 38%, while Samsung is down 32%. Leveraged Korean retail investors have already been liquidated at scale. Korean banks’ cash reserves have been exhausted, with mortgage funds allegedly flowing into the stock market. Korea’s stock market had surged earlier precisely because of nationwide leverage. Now that the market is crashing, it’s the process of deleveraging—just like China’s A-share deleveraging in 2016, with daily plunges.

The period when Korean retail investors were crazily adding leverage was also when U.S. capital was leaving Korea—about $70.8B, draining out of the Korean stock market. This round, Korean retail investors got cut up by Wall Street.

China A-share tech stocks are also falling together. Those who stood in the light are already standing there, bare.

Many retail investors have been talked into ruin by self-styled economists. One said AI is a tsunami, and every pullback is just “picking up passengers in reverse.” Another said AI can keep rising for ten years, and that there is no bubble yet. They use grand narratives to trap retail investors at several years’ highs.

From mid-to-late June, when tech stocks were surging every day, I kept warning everyone about the risks. Most of my followers are rational and agree with me, but some people in the comments have been mocking me—are those people doing okay?

Some also fire back at me: Tech stocks have already risen several times or even more than ten times; so what if they’re down just this much? Those people are also stupid—how many people actually get to eat gains of several multiples? Retail investors are constantly going in and out; if they can manage 50% profit that’s already pretty good. And most retail investors, at the bottom, try with small positions, but at high levels they go all-in with everything. After a single 30% pullback, they’re back to square one.

Honestly, good-hearted bloggers like me aren’t that many. Hello everyone—cherish it well. Don’t keep leveraging. #PreIPOs第二期OpenAI认购