A Korean investor cashed out a savings account for chip stocks in July and lost close to half. Their parents' retirement money went into the same funds.

"A friend bought an imported car off stock gains, and it felt like I was the only one falling behind," said Seo, a 35-year-old office worker. "That's what people call FOMO."

Seo started the year in funds and exchange-traded funds, then cashed out a 100 million won ($72,100 USD) savings account in early July and bought large Korean semiconductor stocks. Markets were still moving higher. Seo told the Korean wire service Newsis (뉴시스) that the expectation at the time was that the next two or three years would turn out fine. Newsis withheld the worker's full name.

"It's almost been cut in half. I think about 60 million won is left," Seo said. "That was money I could have used to get married. I basically burned a year's salary."

Seo's own savings weren't all of it. More went into semiconductor ETFs, and part of what Seo's parents had put aside from their retirement payout went into the same funds. "The mood at home isn't good either," Seo said. "I don't know if the price can get back to where it was. The Korean market is so uncertain that I can't trust it." Some days Seo doesn't open the brokerage app. Selling now would make the loss final, and holding means not knowing how long it takes.

A loss that size lines up with what the large chip names did. SK Hynix shares in Seoul (000660) closed at 2.56 million won ($1,847 USD) on July 1, fell to 1.32 million won on July 30, and were back at 1.66 million won the day before the Newsis report ran. At the bottom that was a 48% decline. Samsung Electronics went from 314,500 won ($227 USD) on July 1 to 207,000 won on July 30. Seo didn't say how the 100 million won was split between the two.

A university student born in 2003 put 5 million won ($3,610 USD) of wages into Samsung Electronics after a friend mentioned the stock was doing well. About 2 million won ($1,440 USD) is left, the student told Newsis. "For a university student, 5 million won is not a small amount at all," the student said. "The hardest part is how fast that much money disappeared."

Those two numbers imply a 60% loss, and Samsung alone doesn't get you there. The stock's worst run this year took it from 362,500 won on June 18 to 207,000 won on July 30, a 43% decline top to bottom, and it had recovered to 247,500 won by the day before the report ran. Somebody who bought at the exact high and checked the account on the exact worst day would still be short of what the student described. Newsis says the student holds overseas stocks and several other products alongside the domestic ones, so the 2 million won is probably not one clean Samsung position, and the student was not asked to itemize it.

Where the borrowing actually shows up

Neither Seo nor the student borrowed to invest, at least not in anything Newsis reported. Seo cashed out a savings account. The student used wages. The national credit figures that landed the same week describe a far larger group of people, and they sit behind these two accounts as context rather than as a measure of them.

On August 19, the Bank of Korea (한국은행) published household credit for the second quarter, and the total came to 2,019.8 trillion won ($1.46 trillion USD). It's the first time the figure has been above 2,000 trillion won, and it has now risen for nine straight quarters. The quarter added 25.9 trillion won ($18.7 billion USD), the largest increase since the third quarter of 2021.

Home loans grew by 12.2 trillion won ($8.80 billion USD) in the quarter. Everything else grew by 12.8 trillion won ($9.23 billion USD). In a country where mortgage debt has driven the household number for years, the borrowing that wasn't for a house grew faster.

"Other loans expanded centered on bank credit loans and brokerage margin lending," said Kim Sung-jun (김성준), who heads the Bank of Korea's financial statistics team. He called the increase in credit loans unusually large for that category.

Kim also said he doesn't expect the second quarter to set the pace. "Because uncertainty in the domestic stock market has risen recently, credit loans and the like should regain a stable footing without the kind of surge we saw in the second quarter," he said. On housing, he said reconstruction and relocation loans move through a long process rather than a short one, so the timing of the next wave of demand is harder to call.

Margin lending had already been growing for a decade before this year. Lee Hyo-seob (이효섭), a senior research fellow at the Korea Capital Market Institute (자본시장연구원), reported that the balance stood at 36.7 trillion won ($26.5 billion USD) at the end of June, 5.5 times what it was at the end of 2016. Leveraged ETFs grew faster still. Their net assets went from 3 trillion won at the end of 2016 to 39.4 trillion won ($28.4 billion USD) in June, 13 times what they were.

The burden was there before any of this. The Office for Government Policy Coordination (국무조정실) surveyed young Koreans in 2024 and published the results in March 2025, putting average personal debt for people aged 19 to 34 at 16.37 million won ($11,800 USD). An investment loss lands on top of that, and the interest keeps coming out on schedule while the account waits.

Yang Jun-seok (양준석), a professor of economics at the Catholic University of Korea, said the size of the bet follows from how little young investors start with. "People in their 20s haven't built up many assets, so if they want to invest big, they end up choosing something like leverage," Yang said. "When they made the risky investment, they either didn't fully recognize the chance of a loss or they ignored it."

Kang Sung-jin (강성진), a professor of economics at Korea University, framed it as a warning about borrowed money. "If you invest with debt, you have to keep in mind that a stock can fall as much as it rises," Kang said. Neither professor was talking about Seo or the student.

The index has since come back. The Kospi closed at 6,912.95 on Friday, up 0.88%, its first finish above 6,900 since August 14 and well clear of the 5,663.24 it printed on July 29 after a 5.98% one-day drop. The chip names have recovered too. What hasn't recovered is the entry price. SK Hynix ended Friday at 1.73 million won, about 32% below where it traded the week Seo bought.