“Samsung Foundry? Totally lucky-Vicky!”
No, that’s not a random internet comment — it’s the actual title of an 8-page equity report from a South Korean brokerage firm.
For the uninitiated, lucky-Vicky is a mashup of “lucky” and Vicky, the English name of Jang Won-young, a K-pop idol beloved by Gen Z. The phrase has taken off among young Koreans as a quirky way of saying “super lucky.”
Slang like that isn’t what you’d expect to find in a corporate earnings report. But these days, South Korea’s financial analysts are swapping out Wall Street speak for meme-speak in a bid to charm the country’s growing cohort of twentysomething retail investors.
From reports titled “The Important Thing Is, Earnings Don’t Break” to “NVIDIA and Dash,” and “Profit to the Max to the Rise to the Roof,” analysts are embracing youth lingo — and, apparently, their inner TikToker — to make reports click-worthy.
And sometimes, quite literally, click-worthy.
Take the defense and aerospace industry report that went live on April 30. Titled “Late Start, Growth Still Valid,” it greets readers not with the usual wall of charts, but with a cartoon character introducing himself as analyst Lee Han-gyeol. Yes, it’s a full-blown webtoon — a “Ree-po-toon,” as it’s being called — that goes on to explain Korea Aerospace Industries' outlook in plain (and illustrated) terms.
“Deliveries are backloaded this year, so the first half will look weak,” says cartoon Han-gyeol. “But growth is expected in the second half.”
This comic-style approach is being pioneered by Kiwoom Securities, the first major firm in the country to roll it out. Readers who want more than punchlines can tap a button to view the original, full-text report — still written by Han-gyeol, for the record.
Some firms are even assigning MBTI personality types to companies. A profit-focused, risk-averse operation might be labeled an “I,” while a merger-hungry acquirer gets tagged as an “E.” One battery materials firm with a “globally aggressive production strategy” was designated an “ESTJ” — the Myers-Briggs profile often associated with bold leadership.
Investors themselves can also get the MBTI treatment, with recommendations tailored to their financial personality type. INTJ? Here’s a long-term ETF. ESFP? Let’s talk meme stocks.
Even gamification is in play. Hana Securities recently launched a financial arcade game called Stockcraft — a cheeky riff on the hit 1990s computer game Starcraft. Players draft investment strategies, predict market movements, and battle an AI opponent in a race to rack up returns.
This generational shift in tone isn’t just for laughs. Securities firms have good reason to woo younger clients: the 20- and 30-something crowd continues to fuel Korea’s retail investing boom. Of the roughly 3.4 million new brokerage accounts opened at the country’s five major firms last year, nearly half belonged to this age group. Many were drawn by the allure of U.S. tech stocks and global market trends.
Whether slang-filled reports and parody games can turn Gen Z investors into long-term clients is anyone’s guess. But one thing is clear: South Korea’s analysts know that if they want to sell stocks to a new generation, they’d better speak their language — emojis and all.
