The trading volume of SK Hynix leveraged ETFs continues to evaporate, signaling that Korean retail investors are nearing the end of their deleveraging phase. A few days ago, I wrote about the retreat of Korean retail investors from SK Hynix leveraged ETFs. At that time, Bloomberg reported that the trading volume of seven SK Hynix leveraged ETFs had dropped from a peak of nearly 800 million shares at the end of July to below 100 million shares. Now, the latest data further confirms this trend. Among them, the KODEX SK Hynix single-stock leveraged ETF saw its daily trading volume exceed 600 million units at the end of July, but quickly fell to tens of millions of units after entering August—a shrinkage of over 90% compared to its peak. This indicates that the most aggressive phase of deleveraging in the Korean market is indeed nearing its end. After the minimum cash margin requirement was raised at the end of July, a large number of retail investors who relied on financing to repeatedly trade single-stock leveraged ETFs exited the market. Coupled with nearly 1 trillion KRW in forced liquidations over the past two months, the remaining leveraged positions that could still be forcibly liquidated have significantly decreased. However, this might not be entirely good news for SK Hynix. Previously, these leveraged funds created forced selling pressure during downturns, but they also served as a crucial source of incremental buying during upswings. Now, with trading volume dropping from hundreds of millions to tens of millions, the risk of cascading forced liquidations has indeed diminished, but the capital willing to chase gains or bottom-fish with high leverage has also disappeared. The financing balance of Korean retail investors has already dropped to its lowest level this year, while foreign investors continue to net sell Korean stocks. If funds don’t recover after the deleveraging phase ends, the decline in trading volume will only worsen liquidity in the Korean market. The current Korean market is very reminiscent of the crypto market at the end of last year. @Gate Crypto, U.S. stocks, Hong Kong stocks, Korean stocks, gold, CFDs, prediction markets—all in one place for trading.