Bad week for ‘the ants’ as ripple effects of Korean crash spread out across Asia
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- South Korea's retail traders, colloquially known as "the ants," saw 1.2 million of them hit with margin calls in a single bad week
- The 1.2 million margin calls represent more than 3% of South Korea's adult population, underscoring the extraordinary scale of leveraged stock-market speculation
Why it matters: With margin calls hitting more than 3% of South Korea's adult population in one week, forced liquidations by retail traders risk deepening any ongoing sell-off and amplifying contagion across Asia's markets, while exposing how heavily the recent rally was built on borrowed money.
