AI도 ‘롤러코스피’는 어지러워…로보어드바이저 상품 99% ‘손실’

Artificial intelligence (AI) powered financial services known as 'robo-advisors' (RA) have recently shown a majority of underwhelming returns in their last three months. In this period, the South Korea Stock Exchange (KOSPI) surged past a historic high of 9,000 points (June 18th) before experiencing severe volatility, including a circuit breaker activated twice in two days (July 28-29th), causing a precipitous 5,000-point drop.

A robo-advisor is a service that employs artificial intelligence algorithms to manage or advise on the investment of assets entrusted by investors, minimizing human judgment and intervention. During the KOSPI's meteoric rise and the resulting 'FOMO' (fear of missing out) and leveraged investment frenzy, many investors suffered significant losses by overextending themselves into the stock market.

While it was speculated that emotion-free AI investment methods could provide more safety, the reality is that AI too was unable to cope with the volatility of the market. According to the guidelines of the Financial Services Agency, out of 629 RA products operated by Cogent, 99% of them recorded negative returns over the last three months, with one product even plummeting by 31.32%.

Even among the 209 products classified as 'conservative', the maximum decline was 17.52%, and only six products managed to generate profits. The Cogent RA testbed center publicly disclosed the individual returns of the approved products after undergoing rigorous scrutiny for validity, safety, and other factors. Notably, retirement-focused RA products tied to domestic assets, totaling 456, also recorded negative returns in the last three months, except for two.

However, given their long-term investment nature, these products could still yield maximum returns of up to 115% over a 1-2 year period. Over the same three-month period, the KOSPI plummeted by 22.60%, with the highest index closing at 9,385.59 and the lowest at 5,262.77, a difference of 4,123 points. The extreme volatility of the Korean stock market also impacted the returns of AI-based investment strategies, indicating that the returns of AI-based investment approaches were unpredictable in this context.

Cogent emphasized that while its RA services are cost-effective, they offer 'average' investment advice based on the assumption of average market conditions, and fail to account for all variables in the financial market.