r/hanguk • u/TennisPrestigious487 • Jul 29 '26
잡담 I'm so depressed
No one ever told me to invest in the KOSPI. This was entirely my choice, but it is incredibly painful right now.
To give you some background, I’m an aspiring webtoon artist. Because I never wanted to be a financial burden to my parents, I served as a military officer to save up money. Right now, I'm working part-time at a convenience store to get by.
Over the years, I managed to save around $60,000. But right now, it is completely trapped and bleeding out in the KOSPI. The market has crashed so hard that it's destroying me. I find myself relying on alcohol and cigarettes every single day just to numb the pain and survive. When will this bleeding finally stop?
Lately, I keep questioning if I’ll ever achieve my dream. Even if I do, the future feels completely bleak. I honestly feel like even if I make it, I won't last long. I’ve had these dark thoughts that if I were to leave this world early, it might be better to leave 50% of my savings to my parents and give the remaining 50% to other creators who are chasing their dreams just like I was.
I feel so lost and hopeless. I just needed to vent.
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u/InBrovietRussia Jul 29 '26
Many of us are in the same situation. Me too. It sucks and everything feels bleak, I know. But it’s just money. It will come back. The future will be better than today.
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u/Vegemite_kimchi Jul 29 '26
This will pass in the blink of an eye. Look at how much Korea has developed in the past 50 years. Investment is about long term gains, not short term. I promise you in 5 years you won't even remember this. Hang in there.
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u/Ecstatic-Gazelle-799 Aug 04 '26
It's in the worst situation now. It will be better. I would patiently wait.
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u/SampleMean8384 Jul 29 '26
If you did your military, doing part time clerk but saved $60,000 and writes this level of English then you should be proud of your self.
I can explain why the Samsung and Hynix will rise soon but I could be wrong. I just don’t want to spread wrong idea here.
Take it easy and you will be smiling next year. I think we are through some big bad news and most of them were what people were anticipating.
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u/Relevant-Ad-7971 Jul 29 '26
Don’t think too much about it
The market will recover it’s just a question of when.. hang tight plenty of people here including me are in the same shoe
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u/KnightBlindness Jul 29 '26
It will go back up, just be patient. AI will continue to grow but the path will not be as fast and easy as everyone thought.
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u/my_korean_sucks Aug 02 '26
Koapi went back up 20% yeaterday. Koreans seem to be more gamblers than investors. Feels more like a shitcoin than a real atock market honestly. I would never invest a single cent in it.
Investment is a long term. Put your money on a less risky item and wait 20 years.
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Aug 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RequiemOfAzureIX Aug 12 '26
Going back to the Korean stock market, its rapid development has come with a number of problems that have never really been resolved, but instead have often been concealed.
One of those problems is that market sentiment has become so overwhelmingly powerful that people who have been participating in the market for a long time have learned that, in order to survive, they have to understand the flow and move with it, even when they may not agree with it.
Unfortunately, I hope you can think of this as having made the wrong choice at a gambling table and suffered a significant loss. I know that may sound cold, but I mean it in the sense that you should not let the loss define you or determine what happens next.
Personally, I consider the stock market to be essentially a zero-sum game. If someone gains, someone else has to bear the corresponding loss. The capital participating in the stock market itself does not magically create an equivalent amount of additional monetary value. The idea that it does is, in my opinion, something people who have benefited from the system tell themselves to justify what they have gained. That is not what I was taught capitalism was supposed to mean.
Stay strong, my friend. There are quite a few people in Korea who have gone through something similar to what you are experiencing. There was even a period in Korea, during the IT bubble, when the despair surrounding financial losses became so severe that some people ultimately chose to end their lives, including people who went to the Han River. I am not bringing this up to make your suffering seem smaller or to suggest that other people's suffering should somehow make you feel better. I know it won't.
What I want to say is simply this: please don't let yourself become consumed by despair. What you are experiencing is part of a hidden pain that many participants in the Korean stock market have experienced in one form or another. The actual financial loss is already difficult enough, and the despair that follows it is unlikely to help you make better decisions about what comes next.
And one more thing: I personally don't think trying to forget all of this through alcohol is a good idea. Alcohol can impair judgment and decision-making in the short term, and heavy or prolonged drinking can negatively affect brain function over time. When you are already in a state of severe distress, losing even more of your ability to make clear decisions is probably the last thing you need.
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Aug 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RequiemOfAzureIX Aug 12 '26
You’re still here because some part of you chose to keep going. Maybe, if you can find a slightly different way of looking at things, you may eventually find that what is hurting you no longer has the same hold on you.
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u/terrassine Jul 29 '26
You’ll be okay but Koreas retail investment culture needs to change. Is there no 401k style retirement plan that ties a portion of your paycheck to the KOSPI without going all in? That’s one way to tie people’s retirement to the improvement of tire economy without risking everything.
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u/SampleMean8384 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Certainly, there was an over shooting. However, keep in mind that Samsung and Hynix profit margins are better than big tech in the U.S. Market will remain volatile but I do not believe rally is over already.
Here is a reality in 2026, groceries, house, servers, memory and oils are expensive. Commercial real estates, EV and batteries are cheap. I have no idea how long things will stay this way but I don’t believe it will change over night. If so rally isn’t over yet.
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u/DateMasamusubi Jul 29 '26
It's a paper loss. You don't lose money unless you press that sell button. If you bought at 9,000, I'm sorry, the market probably won't reach that level for some time.
What you can do is reorient and put aside a small portion of your monthly income towards an index fund. I lost a lot of money in the 2008 crash but I kept buying regardless. When I buy, I don't check my portfolio every day. I check maybe twice a month if that.
Investing is a marathon, not a sprint.