I Want to Be Where the Money Is
The most expensive sentence in investing never sounds like chasing. It sounds like opportunity.
"I want to be where the money is."
We have heard some version of that sentence from nearly every investor who ended up buying high and selling low. No one says it in a panic. They say it calmly, usually right after a friend or a group chat made money in something they do not own yet.
It never sounds like chasing. It sounds like opportunity. Chips are hot, so you buy chips, near the top. Then something else is hot, so you rotate there, also near the top. The sentence was never about a strategy. It was about a feeling: the fear of being the only one not in the room.
What the feeling costs
By the time something is obviously "where the money is," most of the money has already been made there. What is left for the latecomer is mostly enthusiasm.
So the chaser buys enthusiasm. And because the same feeling that got them in also gets them out, they tend to sell exhaustion: after the drop, when leaving finally feels like relief. In late, out late, every time.
Illustration of a common pattern, not actual market data. The distance between where most money goes in and where it comes out is the leak, and it repeats with every new story.
The cost rarely shows up as one big mistake. It shows up as a slow leak, repeated for twenty years.
Korea, 2026: a case study in real time
This year, Korean investors lived this pattern in public, and the numbers make it easy to see from anywhere.
By June, just two companies, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, made up a record 55.7% of the entire index, and the KOSPI closed at a record 8,864 on June 17. That was the top of the wave.
Three weeks before that peak, Korea listed its first leveraged funds on those two stocks. They traded 28 trillion won in their first three days. In July, after the largest of these funds had already peaked, individuals still put in a net 2.77 trillion won. In August and September they sold, after the losses had been taken.
Then the wave turned. From October 6 to 23, the KOSPI fell 20.8% and SK hynix 30.7% (Seoul market data), the worst major market in the world that month. On October 30 the KOSPI closed at 5,730, about 35% below its June record. And in October, individuals went back into the same leveraged funds with a net 305 billion won. By October 28, those funds had lost about 70% on average since launch for SK hynix and about 55% for Samsung.
Here is the part that should stop any investor, in Korea or in the U.S. In late October, both companies reported the most profitable quarter in their history: 83 trillion won of operating profit at SK hynix and 107 trillion won at Samsung. The businesses have never been stronger. The stocks are still well below their June highs. Chasing follows the price, not the business, and this year the two went in opposite directions.
Net purchases by Korean individual investors in the 14 single-stock leveraged funds on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, in trillion won. October covers October 1 to 28. Source: Korea Exchange via Asia Today.
Not a Korean habit. A human one.
The same pattern followed Korean money into U.S. leveraged chip funds this fall: out after a drop, back in after a rally. Americans do it at home too. Every year, S&P Dow Jones Indices checks whether America's best-performing stock funds stay on top. Of the 505 U.S. stock funds in the top quarter in 2021, the number that stayed in the top quarter every year through 2025 was zero.
Not a few. Zero. Last year's winner is the most natural thing to buy and one of the least reliable things to own. Chasing a hot fund is the same move as chasing a hot stock: you arrive after the run. Daily leverage does not close that leak. It widens it.
Why smart people do it anyway
This is not a knowledge problem. Most people who chase know the rule about buying low. The rule is abstract. The feeling of watching others get richer while you stand still is not, and buying the thing makes it stop for a while.
The feed makes it worse. It shows you everyone who won and almost no one who lost.
The boring rule that works
Pick a strategy that fits your actual goals and time horizon. Write down, in calm weather, what you will do when something you do not own is suddenly everywhere. Then hold the plan. It will not feel exciting at dinner. It will feel a great deal better twenty years from now.
A disciplined portfolio does the opposite of chasing. Rebalancing trims what has run and adds to what has lagged, by rule, before anyone asks how it feels. Our portfolios own technology and semiconductors too, at a deliberate size, unleveraged and inside a globally diversified mix, because we believe in what these companies will build over decades, not because they were where the money was last month.
What this means for you
| When you hear | The chase says | The plan says |
|---|---|---|
| "Everyone is buying it" | Get in before it is too late | Own it only if it fits your goals, at a size you could hold through a 50% drop |
| "It already fell 30%" | Get out before it falls further | Check the plan, not the price; rebalance if your mix has drifted |
| "It is a 2x or 3x fund" | A faster road to where the money is | A one-day trading tool, not a home for family wealth |
| "The market is on sale" | Average down with leverage | Own it unleveraged, as one part of a global mix |
| "Two stocks are the whole story" | That is where the growth is | Two companies are a bet; a world portfolio is a plan |
One question to sit with this month: what is the last thing you bought because it felt like everyone else already owned it? You do not need to change anything yet. Just notice whether a plan made that decision, or a feeling did.
Questions about your portfolio, or about something a friend or family member is holding? We are always glad to talk. IPM Advisory serves Korean-American families across Maryland, Washington DC and Northern Virginia, in English and Korean.
By Genti Cici, CFP, CAIA, IPM Advisory. Published November 2026. For general information only. Not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Leveraged and inverse funds can lose most or all of their value. Data as of October 30, 2026; figures may change.
