1.2 million Koreans just got margin called in a single crash.

1.2 million Koreans just got their entire portfolios liquidated because of the crash yesterday in Korean markets. That is roughly 1 in every 30 working age adults that just got cooked. This, let me explain. Between 320,000 and 360,000 of them were fully liquidated by brokers, principal wiped out, and some now owe money to their brokerage. The KOSPI fell 8.95% on Monday, its third worst day since Lehman, and triggered the 7th circuit breaker of the year. SK Hynix CRASHED 15.37%, its biggest fall on record. Samsung CRASHED 10.7%. Retail brokerage deposits have collapsed by ₩30 trillion to ₩107.1 trillion since February. And the forced selling data behind. Monday's crash has not even the numbers yet. The Catalyst: The Semiconductor Slump The core of the KOSPI is dominated by massive tech and hardware giants. The crash was primary fueled by a sharp, global reassessment of the AI sector and semiconductor valuations. TradingKey This much is semiconductors and they had a massive slump yesterday. SK Hynix was down 15% and Samsung was down over 10%. Why So Many Margin Calls? The Culture of "Bbitto" South Korea has a prominent cultural phenomenon known as "Bbitto" (빚투), which translates literally to "debt-fueled investing." Driven by rising living costs and stagnant wages, millions of young retail investors have increasingly turned to ultra-short-term credit accounts and margin trading to aggressively multiply their gains. Brokerages offer credit lines that allow retail traders to buy stocks with massive leverage, often requiring some maintenance margins within just a few days. Moomoo This that liquidated portfolios because South called got what is investing very Korean for much Korean leveraged stock for citizens portfolio down 95% yesterday.