College kids are all-in on investing. ‘FOMO’ and global mayhem wreak all-out havoc on their accounts.

Students wait in line to participate in a Korea Investment & Securities lecture on ″How to become rich by investing in ETFs″ at western Seoul's Hongik University on March 18. [JANG SEO-YUN]

 
When Korea Investment & Securities (KIS) held a lecture on “How to become rich by investing in ETFs” at western Seoul's Hongik University at 5 p.m. on March 18, the lecture room was filled with some 300 students trying to get expert advice on how to do just that — make bank by pumping money into stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETF).
 
When the moderator asked, “Who here is currently investing?” about half of the audience raised their hands. Students immediately took out their phones to photograph the presentation slides as Yeom Jeong-in, head of digital ETF marketing at KIS, confidently said, “People used to say stock investing would ruin your life, but there has never been an easier market to become rich — there is a clear formula to becoming wealthy.”
 

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Interest in stock investing among university students is intensifying with the fear of inflation and the fear of missing out — frequently referred to by anxious investors as “FOMO” — on what seem like opportunities for a better life. 
 
“I don’t usually invest in stocks, but since everyone around me says they made money from it, I’m thinking of opening an account,” said 19-year-old freshman Kim Byeol.
 
“These days, when I receive my part-time wages or allowance, I leave only 1 million won [$720] in cash and invest the rest in stocks. Around 80 to 90 percent of my assets are invested,” said 24-year-old Park Jeong-hyeon.
 
“I originally planned to invest about 50 percent of my money, but when the Kospi plunged due to the Iran war, I went all in. I was confident it would eventually rebound, so I thought of it as a sale,” Jang So-yeon, 22, said.
 
Driving the investment boom are rising housing prices and broader cost-of-living pressures, along with anxiety about the future. Many young people believe it is nearly impossible to buy a home in the Seoul metropolitan area even after saving a lifetime of wages.
 

Apartment complexes are seen near the Han River on March 8. [YONHAP]

 
“Housing prices keep soaring and loans are restricted, but it looks like many people are making money through stocks. I feel like if I don’t invest, I’ll be in serious trouble — like I’ll end up poor,” said 23-year-old Choi Jae-min.
 
“I don’t have enough capital to buy a house anyway, so I’m trying to gradually build retirement savings instead,” said fellow 23-year-old Kim Ji-min.
 
“Even after putting money into savings for a long time, the interest was so low that it felt pointless. It seems better to invest in index-tracking ETFs,” said 25-year-old Kim Hyeong-jun.
 
Some students expressed regret after engaging in aggressive strategies such as leveraged investments.
 
“When the Kospi rose sharply earlier this year, I thought it would fall, so I bought a double-inverse product, but I cut my losses at minus 45 percent. I realized I should never have leveraged,” said 24-year-old Park.
 
“There's an all-or-nothing mindset, I think. After losing a large amount of money in stocks, I started diversifying my investments,” Kim Hyeong-jun said.
 
In fact, many students are reporting losses.
 

“After the war between the United States and Iran broke out, my returns dropped to minus 10 percent. It’s painful, but I think it’s unavoidable living in the era of [U.S. President Donald] Trump,” Kim Ji-min said.
 
“I invested in a single biotech stock based on someone’s recommendation, and I keep losing money. Even during class, I keep checking how much I’m losing,” 22-year-old Jang said.
 
An analysis of brokerage accounts by Mirae Asset Securities found that younger investors tend to have lower returns.
 
In January and February this year, returns for people in their 20s and 30s were 1.37 percent and 2.11 percent, respectively. This was significantly lower than those in their 40s at 9.29 percent, 50s at 14.11 percent, 60s at 15.93 percent and those aged 70 and older at 19.05 percent. Considering that the Kospi rose 45 percent during the same period, younger investors failed to fully capitalize on the market rally.
 
A strong tilt toward overseas stocks was also evident.
 
“From my experience, domestic stocks don’t yield good returns, and after I sell, they often rise six or seven times. Now I only invest in U.S. stocks. My friends also avoid the Korean market, so when it performs well, they complain instead,” Park said.
 

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In a survey of 77 university students in stock investment clubs conducted by KIS, 65 percent said they invest in overseas stocks. The most common reasons, cited by 28 percent each, were that overseas stocks are relatively less volatile and more stable than Korean stocks and that they offer higher expected returns.
 
The most common source of investment information was stock-related clubs and online communities, cited by 20 percent, followed by social media, YouTube and blogs at 18 percent and artificial intelligence at 9 percent. Only 8 percent said they refer to brokerage reports.
 
“I used to read brokerage research reports, but they didn’t feel intuitive. With YouTube, I feel like ‘the logic fits perfectly,’ and it even feels like the world actually works that way, so I keep going back to it,” Kim Hyeong-jun said.
 
“People in their 20s and 30s tend to have relatively small investment capital, so rather than diversifying, they are more likely to concentrate their money on a single promising asset," said Hur Joon-young, an economics professor at Sogang University. "With housing prices in the Seoul metropolitan area so high and growing anxiety about falling behind financially, stock investing has become almost like a cultural phenomenon."
 
“The problem is leverage. One advantage of stock investing is that there is no maturity, but leverage can lead to forced liquidation. In volatile markets like now, investors need to be especially cautious,” added Hur.


This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JANG SEO-YUN, PARK YU-MI [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]