South Korean retail investors bought the dip yesterday and sold at a loss today, with a failed attempt leading to a market value evaporation of 530 trillion won in two days

BlockBeats News, July 29, according to Korean media reports, the Korean stock market suffered a sharp decline for two consecutive days. On July 28, amid heavy foreign investor sell-offs, Korean retail investors bucked the trend by net buying over 4.3 trillion KRW to bottom fish; however, on the 29th, the market downturn further intensified, with retail investors turning to panic selling and net selling 1.42 trillion KRW in the morning, indicating that the previous dip-buying funds had started to cut their losses and exit.

As of the morning of the 29th local time, the KOSPI once fell by more than 12%, and KOSDAQ by more than 8%, with both markets triggering circuit breakers for the first time in history. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both plunged for two consecutive days, with their combined market value evaporating by around 530 trillion KRW, including a reduction of 257 trillion KRW for Samsung Electronics and 273 trillion KRW for SK Hynix.

Citi expects that Korean retail investors' leveraged ETF cumulative losses are about 38.7 billion USD (approximately 56.3 trillion KRW). Meanwhile, Korean investors' margin balances have decreased by more than 30 trillion KRW from the peak, while in July, the net buying amount of US stocks by Korean investors surged about 5.7 times month-on-month, showing that funds are accelerating their exit from Korean stocks and shifting to overseas markets.