The office of opposition lawmaker Choi Eun-sik said retail clients of ten Korean
brokers suffered estimated losses of KRW2.3 trillion ($1.7bn) between May 27 and
Aug. 14 after buying leveraged ETFs and related notes linked to single shares of
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix — the first public estimate of the scale.
Launched in May, those single-stock leveraged products amplified AI-driven
volatility in the Korean equity market, reversing earlier gains and producing
heavy losses. The spike in volatility prompted Korean regulators to step in to
curb retail trading, and turnover in the affected products has since fallen
sharply.
