“Gym trainer takes out a loan to go all in on SK hynix” ... Retail investors weigh investments using “human indicators”

[Financial News] “I hear a gym trainer even took out a loan today to invest in SK hynix. It looks like there’s still plenty of room for the stock to fall.” That was a recent post on the online “Human Indicator Tip-Off Center.” Another tip reported spotting someone nearby loudly declaring that “semiconductor stocks like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are finished.” The idea is to interpret people around you borrowing money to invest in certain stocks as a sign that prices are overheated, and pessimism about the outlook for a particular industry as a sign that the market is nearing a bottom. With KOSPI volatility rising again, this is a way of using so-called “human indicators”—reading the investment behavior and sentiment of people around you in reverse to gauge market highs and lows.
On the 5th, the online “Human Indicator Tip-Off Center” was sharing reports on the investment behavior of family members, friends and coworkers, as well as customers sitting nearby in cafés and gym trainers. A human indicator is an informal point of reference based on the behavior or reactions of people around you to gauge whether the stock market is overheated or subdued. Contributors record which stocks people around them have bought and how interested they are in stocks. Posts also include polls asking whether the market will “rise from here” or “fall from here.”
The reports show how people interpret the investment fervor they sense in everyday life as a yardstick for judging whether the market is overheated. On the 21st of last month, a post said, “My husband doesn’t talk about stocks these days.” Another report said a father-in-law called his son-in-law to ask whether stocks were wearing him down and to suggest taking a break. The decline in stock talk and signs of investment fatigue among people around them were taken as signals that the market’s fervor was cooling. Conversely, some predict a downturn when stock talk becomes more frequent. Posts saying, “My friends keep asking me to recommend stocks that look like they’ll rise soon,” and “Analysts at various securities firms are telling people to hang in there,” drew responses that the market had not yet undergone a sufficient correction.
This approach to investing is based on the contrarian idea of reading the public’s investment sentiment in reverse. The thinking is that if investors become overly optimistic, stock prices may be nearing a peak, while if pessimism reaches an extreme, prices may be approaching a bottom. Financial markets also use measures of public fear and greed as one of several reference points for investment decisions.
Beyond observing the investment behavior of people around them, spaces have also emerged where people share their hopes and anxieties about stock investments. One example is the “Gazua Buddhist Temple,” where users pray for the prices of Bitcoin, Samsung Electronics and SOXL—the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares, a leveraged exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks a U.S. semiconductor index at three times its performance—to rise or fall. In the virtual temple, an image of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and a chart of the company’s stock price are displayed. Users express their hopes about price movements through character-based features such as “bowing to pray for a rise,” “bowing to pray for a fall” and “performing a shamanistic ritual.”
The Human Indicator Tip-Off Center and the Gazua Buddhist Temple are examples of the growing variety of ways investors interpret the stock market. Instead of relying on formal investment information such as corporate earnings, economic indicators and securities firms’ forecasts, they bring unconventional factors—including the investment behavior of people around them and fortune-telling—into their investment decisions.
However, some say it is difficult to predict actual stock price movements based solely on the investment behavior of people around you. Even when people buy the same stock, their investment goals, holding periods and financial circumstances differ. One person taking out a loan to buy a stock does not mean that the stock has reached a peak, nor will a stock necessarily rebound just because people around you are complaining about losses. Byoung Hoon Seok, a professor in the Department of Economics at Ewha Womans University, cautioned that “investing based on expectations that lack a solid basis can leave your money tied up for a long time or lead to losses in a highly volatile market.”
Experts advise that investment decisions should be based on companies’ value and growth potential, not on the trading behavior of people around you or signals trending online. Choi, Chul, a professor in the Department of Consumer Economics at Sookmyung Women’s University, said, “Rather than reacting emotionally to every news report, investors should look at the long-term competitiveness of key domestic industries such as semiconductors and automobiles, as well as corporate earnings.” He added, “If it is difficult to assess individual stocks, using an exchange-traded fund (ETF) is another option.”


[email protected] Seo Ji-yoon Reporter