Young people in their 20s and 30s in South Korea were directly wiped out in this downturn—nearly four hundred thousand accounts. The number of liquidations was close to four hundred thousand, and their principal was completely zeroed out overnight.

Actually, you’d think: don’t these young people really understand the risks of leverage?

They do. But in an atmosphere where everyone is going crazy chasing overnight wealth, even if you’re rational, seeing the guy next door buy yet another car every day—who wouldn’t feel itchy?

What people fear most isn’t having no money—it’s watching someone who’s not as good as you suddenly get on top of you by having the nerve.

The most terrifying thing is that many people always think they’re different from others.

They believe they’re smart enough to go in, make a quick grab, and leave—only to find that after tasting a bit of sweetness, they start adding more principal and going all-in to gamble it all.

In capital markets, people who can still make big money by going all-in on a single track are, in essence, not investment geniacs at all—they’re just gamblers with exceptional luck.

And the biggest fate of gamblers is that they can never stop when they’re winning.

As long as the stock market is still there, and leverage still exists, sooner or later they will give back all their chips.

Why do those who shout “triple your money in a year” myths largely disappear by the third year?

Because they can’t survive. In this market, those who make it to the end are often the ones who look the most timid, the most diversified, and the “honest people” who only earn a little profit each year.