South Korean retail investors bottom-fished yesterday, only to cut their losses today, with 530 trillion won in market capitalization evaporating over the two days after their failed attempt to catch the dip.

According to South Korean media reports, South Korea’s stock market has suffered two consecutive days of sharp declines. On July 28, amid massive foreign sell-offs, South Korean retail investors net bought over 4.3 trillion won against the trend to bottom-fish. However, on the 29th, the market sell-off deepened, and retail investors shifted to panic selling, net selling 1.42 trillion won in the morning session, indicating that the capital that had previously stepped in to buy the dip has started cutting losses and exiting. As of the morning of July 29 local time, the KOSPI once fell more than 12% and the KOSDAQ dropped over 8%, triggering circuit breakers in both markets for the first time in history. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have plunged for two straight days, with their combined market value evaporating around 530 trillion won — Samsung Electronics shrank by 257 trillion won, and SK Hynix by 273 trillion won. Citigroup estimates that South Korean retail investors’ leveraged ETFs have accumulated losses of roughly $38.7 billion (about 56.3 trillion won). Meanwhile, South Korean investors’ margin balances have dropped by more than 30 trillion won from their peak, while the net amount of U.S. stocks bought by South Korean investors in July surged approximately 5.7 times month-on-month, signaling that capital is accelerating its exit from South Korean stocks and shifting to overseas markets.