More and more soldiers are dabbling in stock investment. With the use of mobile phones in the unit and the rapid rise in wages, he is heading to the stock market with extra money. The number of ‘defense ants’ is expected to increase as the government continues to increase soldiers’ wages and expand cell phone usage time.
Soldiers investing in stocks in after-hours trading
According to the military on the 11th, Sergeant A, who is serving in the 22nd Army Division in Goseong, Gangwon Province, sold 20 shares of Jusung Engineering, a semiconductor-related stock, at 17,000 won per share last month. His rate of return is close to 50%. He has invested about half of his monthly salary in stocks since his days as a corporal and has been recording returns of around 20% so far. Sergeant A said that it is common for soldiers to invest in stocks around them.
Soldiers appeared on the stock market as cell phones became available after work. After a pilot operation in 2018, the Ministry of National Defense allowed soldiers from all units to use mobile phones in the military after work from April of the following year. Although there are slight differences for each unit, soldiers usually receive their personal cell phones at 5:30 pm on weekdays and return them at 9 pm.
You can use your cell phone only after the market closes, but stock trading is not impossible. You can do after-hours trading or use the reservation sell/buy function. Soldiers who work shifts can use their mobile phones during nap time after finishing their night shift, so they can participate in the regular field held from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm.
The increased salary is also one of the factors that jumped into stock investment. As of 2023, the monthly salary of a sergeant is 1 million won, an increase of 48% from the previous year (676,100 won). If you sign up for the Army Savings Savings for Tomorrow, up to 400,000 won will be taken out of your bank account every month, but you will still have up to 600,000 won of extra money left. The monthly wages of corporals and privates are 800,000 won and 680,000 won메이저놀이터, respectively. 10,000 to 10
per week among soldiersIt is known that the popularity of the 10,000 won event is high. Examples include Samsung Electronics and Kakao. A soldier serving in the Air Force said, “There are places where soldiers living in the same dormitory pool their monthly wages of 100,000 won each and make it like a fund to invest in stocks with high per-share prices.”
Need to prepare countermeasures such as investment addictionAs the culture of investing in stocks spreads among the soldiers, military officers are worried that there will be problems in managing the barracks. This is because if soldiers become too addicted to investment or fall into depression due to a failure in investment, the discipline of the unit may be undermined. In the worst case, there are worries that even extreme choices can be attempted.
According to a report released by the Capital Market Research Institute in 2021, new investors in their 20s, males, and new investors were analyzed to show speculative investment behavior with a very high percentage of ‘intraday trading’ and item replacement rates, in which they buy and sell the same stock within a day.
However, there is no way to prevent soldiers from investing in stocks. The Basic Act on the Status and Service of Soldiers prohibits soldiers from engaging in for-profit businesses such as the financial industry, but does not regulate simple stock investment.
It is pointed out that appropriate measures must be prepared before it is too late. Last month, the Ministry of National Defense announced that it would expand the hours of cell phone possession and use by soldiers from after the morning roll call (6-7 a.m.) to 9 p.m. The Ministry of National Defense plans to raise the monthly salary of sergeants to 1.5 million won by 2025. A noncommissioned officer working in the frontline unit of the Army said, “Allowing the use of mobile phones in order to protect the human rights of soldiers is a trend of the times, so I see it as irresistible.” .