Sorry for a bit of a meta-reply, but this is kind of the reason for my sadness: there is this sense of isolation/aloofness to your question. The best thing to do is to work hard to prevent this outcome, since it's less than zero sum. I am sorry, but even if I knew your financial situation and goals I wouldn't want to offer investing opinions.
It's not aloofness or isolation - and it's perhaps less sad if you consider that people -- by force of things -- are going to explore how to survive best during tragedies (which includes helping their families). The finger-wagging at corrupt or inefficient systems is important at a certain intellectual level; the rest of us have to think about mortgages and other such earthly things.
Just standard advice that is widely available is to have at least 3-6 months of emergency funds (liquid cash to cover all monthly expenses) and err on being conservative.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do to prevent a financial collapse across the nation...
I’ve made tons of money from the usual FANG suspects in the past few years, but it’s all unrealized gain. No doubt I’ve thought about selling off every year, but chose instead to continue riding it out, always wondering how much it’s going to take for me to be satisfied.
On days like today when FANG stocks are getting beat up, I wonder how much longer this can really go. Every year that passes I take more seriously any sign that suggests these stocks can no longer defy gravity.
... in the scope of a public forum, I don't want to go off-topic or give advice (which may well be wrong and cost you money). But you should ask yourself what your investments are worth, and why they are worth that. If you can't answer those questions, that is your first problem. Then you should ask if you have better returns elsewhere in various scenarios (repaying debt, moving to more fixed/safer income streams) based on your personal situation and goals. Best of luck, I hope that is useful. Don't underestimate your personal agency to change the world around you.
It would be interesting to see an investment model that assumes a basket of historical companies to approximate someone's unrealized compensation over a random period of historical data.
Over 40+ years, consider not just a few current strong companies like Apple and MS, but also many others that have gone through many business cycles or perhaps have ended. IBM, Oracle, Sun, DEC, SGI, Cray, HP, Intel, AMD, ATI, NVIDIA, Maxtor, Seagate, Dell, Gateway... Or, consider other baskets to suit your employer basket: IBM, EDS, CA (tech consulting)... PWC, Arthur Andersen (audit/services)... Sears, Montgomery Wards, JC Penney (mail-order/logistics/merchants)...
I think many people make the mistake of "this time it's different" or "I'm different". My cohort saw many people go through the dot-com bubble and it sure seemed random as to which ones won a lottery and which ones got only a t-shirt in the end.
In my view, the only rational strategy would be to continually convert your employer compensation and reinvest into the diversified portfolio you would otherwise consider prudent if you weren't in that particular job. Anything less than that, and you are making an implicit gamble to time the market while perhaps telling yourself it is a tax optimization.
