"Please Spare Me, I'll Never Do It Again"... Fear Index Spikes

[Anchor]

Individual investors plunged into panic amid a historic market crash. Because many had concentrated their investments heavily on semiconductor stocks, the shock was especially severe.

Reporter Hong Yeongjae has more.

[Reporter]

Retail investors could not take their eyes off the trading boards, which were stained entirely in blue, all day long.

[Lee Choong-yeon / Yangcheon-gu, Seoul: I woke up in the morning right around 8:58, and Samsung Electronics was already down by around 8-something percent. So I thought a correction period was coming. But then SK Hynix suddenly plunged to minus 10 percent. I was shocked.]

As Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—the twin pillars that have led the domestic stock market—nosedived, investors with a high weighting in these two stocks suffered an even greater blow.

Today (July 28), Samsung Electronics recorded its largest daily drop in about 17 years since the 2008 global financial crisis, plunging 41% compared to its peak last month.

SK Hynix, which had been eyeing the 3 million won mark, tumbled by 48%, effectively getting cut in half.

[Individual Investor A: I put 100% of my money into semiconductors. I invested almost all of it, using both my surplus funds and loans, because I had that much conviction in AI. When it drops this severely, it really drains all your strength.]

Online communities flooded with reactions from people saying they could not focus on their work, or begging to be spared, vowing never to touch stocks again and only use savings and installment deposits.

[Individual Investor B: It spiked up way too much during the first half of the year, so I figured something like this would happen eventually. Honestly, I've already given up and resigned myself to it before this.]

As the stock market crashed, the Kospi 200 Volatility Index, often referred to as South Korea's fear gauge, surged by more than 7% compared to the previous day, crossing the 80 threshold for the first time in 7 trading days.

[Park Sang-hyun / Research Fellow at iM Securities: We have to consider that investor sentiment itself is quite poor. Because volatility has been so immense up until now, individual investors naturally have no choice but to feel considerable fatigue.]

While the "FOMO" (fear of missing out) sentiment of feeling left behind was dominant during the market surge in the first half of the year, a new term called "ZOMO" (joy of missing out) is spreading recently, with people saying they actually feel relieved not holding stocks during the plunging market.

(Reported by Dae-woong Choi | Video edited by Shin Se-eun | Design by Han Heung-soo)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.