00:00A midi grueling scheduled at school in preparation for a career in foreign service,
00:0524-year-old South Korean Kim Min-sung takes as many side gigs as he can,
00:10that is to fund his other preoccupation, day trading.
00:14I have two trading accounts, one to make seed money to buy a property one day,
00:23and the other is for a more aggressive investing to hopefully achieve financial independence
00:27and retire early sooner than later.
00:36Kim says he's unfazed by this month's volatility,
00:39with stocks seesawing wildly amid the war in the Middle East, and he is far from alone.
00:45South Korea's retail investors are known locally as ants,
00:49individually small but collectively mighty,
00:51and they have turbocharged a world-beating doubling in the country's benchmark COSPI index over six months.
00:58It rallied to an all-time peak on February 27th, a day before war broke out in the Middle East.
01:04On March 4th, the index plunged 12%, its biggest daily loss ever.
01:09But instead of cashing out, the nation's 14 million ants have doubled down.
01:13This month saw average daily trading volume go above 40 trillion won,
01:18or almost $27 billion for the first time.
01:21On Monday alone, retail investors bought a record $4.6 billion worth of stocks,
01:27even as the COSPI slumped 6.5%.
01:30Kwon Soon-kook, a full-timer at a retail company in Seoul,
01:34used this month's sell-off to buy more stocks at a discount.
01:40The biggest key word here, I think, is uncertainty.
01:42I am in a situation filled with uncertainty and risk where I don't know when my employment might end,
01:48when my paychecks could stop, or how much financial support my child will require, if I have one.
01:54Some analysts caution against over-enthusiasm amid the geopolitical uncertainty.
02:00Xia Sung-yong of Pirei Asset Security says,
02:02if the war drags on, the economy will inevitably face significant disruption.
02:08South Korea is very dependent on exports, making it inherently sensitive to external factors.
02:13So if the global economy contracts, South Korea's exports will fall,
02:16leading to a fall in corporate profits and, naturally, stock prices as well.
02:22On Friday morning, the COSPI was down another 3%, but that probably didn't worry the ants.
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