Seoul, South Korea – When Kim Ha-young, a Seoul office worker in her 30s, came into a little unexpected cash last year after paying the deposit on her rented apartment, she did something she had never done before.She bought shares.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listWith little knowledge of the market, Kim picked SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s largest manufacturers of memory chips used for AI, on a whim.“I mean, when you think of Korea, you think of Samsung, right?” Kim told Al Jazeera, explaining that she started investing “with no prior research at all”.Then, in September, Kim’s shares began to climb rapidly.At first, Kim told herself she’d be happy with a gain of 50,000 won ($33).But as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics’ stock price continued to soar, she continued buying and selling shares before deciding in February to hold onto her stock.Since then, Kim’s stakes in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have both more than doubled in value.“I was in the green, so I told myself to just wait it out – it had climbed nicely over the past half year,” Kim said. A currency dealer works in front of an electronic board displaying the Kospi and currency exchanges rates at the dealing room of a bank in Seoul, South Korea, on June 8, 2026 [Kim Hong-Ji /Reuters]Kim is among a swelling number of everyday South Koreans who have waded into the stock market for the first time during the most spectacular rally in the country’s history.The number of South Koreans who own stocks surged from a …
