Your everyday investor probably shouldn't be shorting in ultra high volatility periods like this. Markets spike for one day in the course of leading to a recession leads to a margin call and you can't post collateral, then you're done. Doesn't matter if it goes to zero a week after.

Why do you have to short anything? The idea was to get more defensive months ago. Long term treasuries are up almost 50% y-o-y.

If you think it's easy to short things in a volatile market like this, then you've probably never tried to...

I started getting defensive right after the election of 2016.

Modern history does not have an example of you know which party going on a tax cutting, over-spending, self-dealing, deregulation binge that did not end in a catastrophe. Add to that complete lack of competency when it comes to dealing with a not self-made crisis (a matter of time), and only a chump would think the good times would keep on rolling.

The market so far has absorbed the dumb trade war by pure optimism, and we only narrowly avoided a war with Iran. It all has been blind luck so far, and it just ran out.

Buying puts on SPY. Realized gains (so far) are $30k from an initial "investment" of $1k about three weeks ago. Currently have about $10k riding with expirations in April and May. If the market shoots up because the Fed announces stimulus, I'll buy more. It's pretty clear that the virus is going to decimate the world economy for many months, maybe years. And watching the complete mismanagement by the US only increases my confidence.

I also moved $600k to cash, about 80% of it a month ago. Never done that in 20 years of investing, and probably wouldn't advise it to anyone now either. But when China locked down the whole country, I knew it was time to stand on the sidelines. Worst case, I'd lose out on a few percentage points of growth and jump back in once the threat had passed. I also still have significant indirect exposure through unvested employer stock.

To be clear, this is all fairly risky and ill-advised.