Reddit user “skilliard7,” who bet against South Korean companies, lost half a million dollars over a single photo. He believed that the country’s shrinking population and growing interest in healthy eating would reduce demand for fast food products, especially fried chicken. Based on this idea, he opened a “short” in the hope that the shares of local chicken producers would fall in price, that is, he planned to make a profit when prices fell.
However, events took an unexpected turn. Earlier this week, a photo taken at the Seoul restaurant “KKanbu Chicken” spread on social networks. The photo showed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, along with representatives of Samsung and Hyundai, enjoying fried chicken and beer. These shots caused a huge resonance in the Korean media and social networks for several hours. The interest of technology giants in local brands was perceived by the public as “national pride.”
Then an unexpected jump occurred in the market - the shares of chicken producers rose in price by 20-30 percent in just a few hours. The investor lost about $500,000 as his open positions were forcibly closed.
The investor posted on Reddit, writing: “I lost everything and don’t know what to do now. How did I not realize that Jensen Hwang would have such an impact on South Koreans’ love of chicken?”
