"I Made as Much as My Annual Salary on SK Hynix" ... The Trap of Group Chats Where Losses Never Get Posted [World of Retail Investors]

As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
my gains today are exactly equal to my annual salary. Is my salary too low, or is Hynix just a jackpot?" "Samsung Electronics is doing well too," and so on.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
All through April, the KOSPI Composite Index kept setting new records, and people said it was a historic bull run. In Seong’s case, too, stock talk is everywhere.
It comes up in group chats with college friends and in KakaoTalk Open Chat rooms she joined for hobbies. While her company colleagues boast about their returns, Seong quietly reads along again today.
The stocks she bought last month are still in the red. Each time, Seong cannot help but wonder.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won ."Is everyone really making money from stocks except me? Am I the only one losing money like this?" \r\nOf course, not everyone in the group chat posts profit screenshots and says they have "locked in gains. " Among the 23 people in the company chat, only about four or five usually talk about profits.As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
Occasionally, a few people respond with comments like, "I’m jealous, I’m still far from that. " The rest stay quiet, just like Seong.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
It is derived from sociologist Erving Goffman’s theory of "impression management," which says that people tend to reveal only information that works in their favor and hide information that does not. That is the idea.This psychology is especially strong in stocks. When people make money, it becomes a boast that says, "I read the market well." But when they lose money, it becomes an admission that says, "My judgment was wrong." It becomes even harder to admit losses in an atmosphere where everyone seems to be saying they made money.The same is true on YouTube, anonymous online communities, and social networking service (SNS) platforms.
Posts about huge investment gains get more clicks and are boosted by algorithms, while posts admitting losses are hard to find.
As selective self-disclosure becomes reinforced by the structure of the platform, profit screenshots pile up while stories of losses quietly disappear.
Over time, this phenomenon can lead to "survivorship bias" .The term was first pointed out by statistician Abraham Wald during World War II in his analysis of United States Armed Forces bombers.It refers to a distortion of reality that occurs when only the survivors remain in the data, while the disappeared are invisible.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
\r\nIn other words, investors with heavy losses leave the market without saying a word, while only those who made some profit remain.That makes the illusion stronger that "many people around me are making money in stocks." Do not be swayed by profit screenshots Seong said that when she looks at the screen full of profit screenshots, she suffers from "a painful sense of relative deprivation, as if I’m the only one in the world who can’t make money.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
" At that point, reason can be paralyzed.
What we must not forget, then, is that we should not be overly dazzled by the voices of a few, such as profit screenshots.In particular, caution is needed with chasing stocks that are already at their peak or with leveraged betting that risks several times the principal in an attempt to recover losses quickly.According to the report "Behavioral Biases and Trading Behaviors of Domestic Individual Investors," released by the Korea Capital Market Institute in 2022, individual investors who trade more frequently tend to post lower returns.
In the end, the profit posts we see are not the whole market.
As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .As soon as the morning alarm goes off and she checks the chat, screenshots of stocks opening in the red keep pouring in, along with nonstop chatter from her colleagues. 3 million won .
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter