"I hope today is the bottom" as the stock market plummets... Ants betting heavily on leverage sigh

Individual investors have purchased a large number of KOSPI and KOSDAQ leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past month, but their sighs are deepening as the indices have hardly entered the recovery phase.

According to financial information company Yonhap Infomax and the Korea Exchange on the 5th, from October 6th to November 4th, individuals made a net purchase of KRW 1.0513 trillion of 'KODEX Leverage', which doubles the daily return of the KOSPI 200 index. Based on individual net purchases, this is the largest amount among domestic listed ETFs.

Next, the second largest net purchase of 'KODEX KOSDAQ 150 Leverage', which follows the daily change rate of the KOSDAQ 150 index by a positive multiple of 2, was KRW 807.9 billion.

Semiconductor industry leverage products such as 'KODEX Semiconductor Leverage' (10th place, KRW 203.3 billion) and 'TIGER Semiconductor TOP 10 Leverage' (11th place, KRW 191.9 billion) were also ranked in the top net purchase amount.

Park Woo-yeol, senior researcher at Shinhan Investment & Securities, said, "As the domestic stock market continued to fall, there was a large net inflow of funds into index-type ETFs as the inflow of low-price purchases continued. By theme, the net inflow was large in semiconductor subdivisions (materials, components, equipment), secondary batteries, U.S. Big Tech (giant technology companies), and nuclear energy."

However, the returns of the leveraged ETF were sluggish.

During the same period, KODEX leverage fell by 38.37% and KODEX KOSDAQ 150 leverage fell by 41.75%.

On the other hand, the 'Gobbus' ETF, which can generate double returns when the KOSPI 200 index falls, has risen to the top in terms of return.

'KIWOOM 200 Futures Inverse 2X' (46.38%), 'TIGER 200 Futures Inverse 2X' (45.33%), and 'KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X' (44.93%) achieved returns of around 45%.

Single-stock multiverse products ‘SOL SK Hynix Futures Single-item Inverse 2X’ and ‘PLUS Samsung Electronics Futures Single-item Inverse 2X’ rose 43.59% and 42.75%, respectively.

On this day, KOSPI plummeted by more than 4% during the day, triggering a temporary suspension of program selling bids (selling sidecar). As of 10:52 a.m., Samsung Electronics [005930] is trading at 205,750 won, down 5.62%, and SK Hynix [000660] is trading at 1.3 million won, down 6.88%.

Individuals who invested with leverage in hopes of a rebound are feeling heartbroken.

An investor who invested in a leveraged ETF in an online securities community complained, "I never thought it would fall this far. I hope today is the bottom." Other investors complained, “The bottom is getting lower, so I want to go in, but I can’t (I don’t know where the bottom will be),” and “Long-term investing has begun.”

On the other hand, there were investors who said they would hold out, saying, “It may fall in the short term, but it will trend upward in the long term.”