South Korean small investors bet $19 billion on leveraged AI chip funds. The KOSPI crash erased a third of the index since June, the deepest slide since the 2008 global financial crisis. About $1.59 trillion in market value is gone, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix driving 76% of that loss. The Bank of Korea raised rates to 2.75% in July and is signaling more hikes ahead. Regulators tripled the minimum deposit to trade leveraged products and froze new listings. As a result, Korean retail investors, nicknamed « ants », are fleeing to US markets, buying $4.6 billion of American stocks in July alone.
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