PPP calls on President Lee to apologize over foreign media's 'retail investor massacre' coverage

The People Power Party on Sunday called on President Lee Jae-myung to apologize and dismiss those responsible for the extreme volatility gripping South Korea's stock markets, citing growing alarm from foreign media over wild swings between record crashes and surges.

PPP spokesperson Cho Yong-sul said in a statement that sidecar measures had been triggered 70 times and circuit breakers 13 times on the Kospi and Kosdaq markets this year alone — a frequency he called "more than during the global financial crisis." "Despite this, the government has failed to produce any fundamental countermeasures and has in effect left market instability unaddressed," Cho said.

Cho said the bigger problem was policy uncertainty. "Unpredictable policy shifts and a string of market-rattling policy signals are undermining market predictability and dampening investor sentiment," he said. "Ultimately, the damage falls squarely on ordinary retail investors who have little capacity to absorb the risk."

"The government's role is not to hype the market or shake it with political messaging," Cho said, adding that creating a predictable policy environment in which investors can manage their assets with confidence is "a basic duty of the state."

Cho also pointed to a string of critical assessments from foreign outlets, saying South Korea's stock market had "become a daily target of concern and criticism from major international media."

Bloomberg had earlier reported that volatility in the Kospi had exceeded 60 percent, surpassing even bitcoin.

Reuters, meanwhile, covered retail investors sending funeral wreaths to the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, in protest over government policy — running the piece under the subheadline "retail investor massacre."

"The fact that major foreign outlets are using phrases like 'higher volatility than bitcoin,' 'casino' and 'retail investor massacre' to describe South Korea's stock market is something the government cannot afford to brush aside," Cho said.

Cho urged President Lee to "apologize to the public for the reality of a South Korean stock market now branded a speculative den" and to conduct a full review of the policy direction needed to restore market confidence. He also called for "strict accountability, including dismissal, for the policy officials who have fueled market instability."