A man wearing a face mask walks past an advertisement for K-pop band BTS displayed in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept 18, 2020. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

When shares of K-pop agency Big Hit Entertainment Co started paring gains on their trading debut, devotees of the world-famous BTS band it manages rushed online to show their support.

“I bought Big Hit shares and will keep buying one share after another,” a fan displaying a BTS member as profile photo tweeted on Thursday. “I’ll buy a share whenever news media shakes things up and hold them until I die. Media keeps talking about losses, but they know nothing.”

The tweet, which got more than 550 likes, has prompted similar responses from fellow fans, some of whom also claim to have bought shares. Another devotee, whose profile photo is also that of a BTS member, wrote, “I bought one share and feel great even though the price dropped. Let’s have a shareholder meeting.”

In Korea, mom-and-pop investors are using massive leverage to pour record borrowed money into the nation’s US$1.6 trillion equity market, including millennials seeking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity amid high unemployment and surging housing prices

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In the music industry, fans are everything. But when it comes to K-pop, that adage holds more true than ever. They’re experts at mobilizing, especially online, to help their idols get more streaming or YouTube views, social-media mentions and music sales. When BTS and Big Hit gave away US$1 million to support the Black Lives Matter campaign in June, their fans -- known as the Army -- started a fund-raising push to match the donation with the Twitter hashtag #MatchAMillion, raising more than US$817,000 in just 24 hours.

It’s thanks to them that the industry has been able to survive the coronavirus pandemic, even with concerts and live events being scrapped. While the combined album sales of Universal Music Group Inc, Sony Corp. and Warner Music Group Corp. dropped 23 percent in the first six months of the year, they surged 46 percent for the K-pop sector, according to a research report this month by Kihoon Lee, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment Co in Seoul.

“After K-Pop secured global popularity, its fan base is now spending money on buying albums,” Lee noted. “Only K-pop is growing in the global industry and such growth won’t suddenly come to an end.”

Whether the devotees will become avid supporters in the equity market too remains to be seen -- so far there’s little evidence that they’re buying more than a handful of shares. Big Hit slipped 5.7 percent Monday, adding to Friday’s 22 percent drop, following a 91 percent jump on its Thursday debut. But what’s for sure is that retail trading has surged this year as COVID-19 kept people home.

In Korea, mom-and-pop investors are using massive leverage to pour record borrowed money into the nation’s US$1.6 trillion equity market, including millennials seeking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity amid high unemployment and surging housing prices. The nation’s ban on short selling -- Korea is the world’s biggest major market with such a restriction -- is only boosting their confidence. Individual investors have taken over from institutional ones to account for 70 percent of daily trading value.

Of course, all that doesn’t come without risk, and K-pop stocks have proved particularly volatile as the popularity of artists fades. SM Entertainment Co., Korea’s oldest agency, rose more than 2,300 percent in the three years to its 2012 peak thanks to bands like TVXQ and Girls’ Generation, but it’s fallen 55 percent since. YG Entertainment Inc., known for Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit song never went back to its high eight years ago, when the Korean rapper’s tune went viral globally.

A sex scandal surrounding a member of the Big Bang boy band managed by YG was another challenge to the industry last year, and the requirement for male citizens in Korea to serve in the military is an ongoing concern for bands like BTS.

Governance has also been an issue as the founders are usually the largest owners of K-pop agencies -- Big Hit’s Bang Si-hyuk is now worth US$2.2 billion, while those of YG, SM and JYP Entertainment Corp. are multimillionaires. Last year, KB Asset Management asked SM for plans to improve corporate governance and dividends.

Confetti falls on Bang Si-hyuk, middle, and other attendees at the Big Hit Entertainment Co's IPO ceremony at the Korea Exchange in Seoul on Oct 15, 2020. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

READ MORE: BTS members make millions as Big Hit shares jump in IPO

Still, entertainment stocks have been investor darlings lately. Day traders have bought net 167 billion won (US$146 million) of SM, YG and JYP shares this year, while local institutional investors have sold 209 billion won and foreigners have invested just 37 billion won, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

For those who bought into the Big Hit initial public offering, the first hiccup may come next month, when 30 percent of the institutional investors will be able to sell shares after their lock-up period expires. That led to a 10 percent stock plunge for a previous popular Korean listing, SK Biopharmaceuticals Co.

But that’s not a concern for the Army.

“We don’t fall down that easy,” a fan wrote on Twitter. “We won’t let Big Hit collapse.”