The move equivalent to buying stock when you think it’s going to go up is to sell stock you own when you think it’s going to go down.
Or you can look at the series of actions, where buying when you think it’ll go up is just step 1, then step 2 is wait for it to go up, and step 3 is sell it for a profit, and step 4 is look for the next stock you think will go up (or wait and hold the cash if you don’t think any will).
In which case you can do step 3 if you own the stock, or step 4 if you don’t. Then, if it does crash (and the crash is stock prices and not the currency itself, like what happened to a degree in response to the money printed after 2020), you can buy back in at the bottom and wait for it to go up.
But if the fed pumps money into the system to prop up the stock markets, or the government bails out firms that might go under, then that money can be used to keep the stock prices high. And with the richest 1% owning such a high portion of the entire economy, if they have a lot of cash, they could also do that without any help from the feds (reserve or government).
So depending on how a crash is responded to, the best bet might be holding cash or avoiding holding cash. Or maybe investing in some good that holds value well.
However, holding stock might still be fine, assuming the equities you hold are able to survive the crash and everything that comes next. If you look at the historic crashes, the value does always return and pass the previous before crash value, at least on average. You won’t get rich playing it like that but you might not lose those unrealized losses unless you’re in a position where you have to sell.
The move equivalent to buying stock when you think it’s going to go up is to sell stock you own when you think it’s going to go down.
Or you can look at the series of actions, where buying when you think it’ll go up is just step 1, then step 2 is wait for it to go up, and step 3 is sell it for a profit, and step 4 is look for the next stock you think will go up (or wait and hold the cash if you don’t think any will).
In which case you can do step 3 if you own the stock, or step 4 if you don’t. Then, if it does crash (and the crash is stock prices and not the currency itself, like what happened to a degree in response to the money printed after 2020), you can buy back in at the bottom and wait for it to go up.
But if the fed pumps money into the system to prop up the stock markets, or the government bails out firms that might go under, then that money can be used to keep the stock prices high. And with the richest 1% owning such a high portion of the entire economy, if they have a lot of cash, they could also do that without any help from the feds (reserve or government).
So depending on how a crash is responded to, the best bet might be holding cash or avoiding holding cash. Or maybe investing in some good that holds value well.
However, holding stock might still be fine, assuming the equities you hold are able to survive the crash and everything that comes next. If you look at the historic crashes, the value does always return and pass the previous before crash value, at least on average. You won’t get rich playing it like that but you might not lose those unrealized losses unless you’re in a position where you have to sell.