Squid Game Investors Are the Unluckiest of All

Korean retail investors put Lehman Brothers in their top 50 stocks one month before it collapsed. They also crowded into Bear Stearns before its implosion, crude oil before it went negative, and Nikola before fraud allegations crushed it.

Korean retail investors have an uncanny ability to buy securities that are about to crash. For example, consider the collapse of Lehman. Out of all the stocks they could have bought in August 2008, they put Lehman in their top 50. They are a danger to themselves and possibly to others.
— Owen A. Lamont

Lamont, a portfolio manager with Arcadian, an Australian funds manager, is quick to point out that Korean investors may be no worse than their American peers.

Still, in his March analysis, he found they were often big buyers of American securities just before disaster struck.

Perhaps concerningly, Korean retail investors' holdings of US equities have nearly doubled this year to a record $170 billion. They have done well as the market has risen, but he doubts they have a magic touch.

Instead, Lamont points out that in the early episodes of the TV show, Squid Game, the giant piggy bank kept filling up with money, suggesting the players were winning.

But by the final episode, almost all them were dead. Let's hope reality doesn't imitate art.

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