WSJ Tech News Briefing · Friday, August 28, 2026
Many individual investors in South Korea, known as 'ants,' have suffered substantial losses as the Kospi index experienced a sharp decline of about 40% over six weeks. These investors, often using borrowed money, are finding their investments evaporating quickly.
“This is a market that fell about 40% over six weeks earlier this summer.”
“He put his whole severance check, he said, into investments in the Korean index, and he lost almost half of it just within a week.”
“We found a lot of examples like that of people's money really sort of evaporating at a much faster pace than they might have expected or thought the risks were.”