Much depends on your investments. We have treasuries and municipal bonds and frankly neither the Federal government or the states and cities look very safe. Their value doesn't matter much to us as long as they're still paying as required. Having investments in the US Treasury or in the State of Florida doesn't sound all that good today, certainly a bit of a leap of faith.
As to equities, looking at stocks and mutual funds we're down 7.5% for the year. Not horrible. Nasdaq is down 4%, S&P 500 12%, Dow down 17%, Russell 2000 down 26%. Those numbers aren't bad enough to make me liquidate.
We never invested in cruise lines or airlines, but have a lot in airlines indirectly through investments like Berkshire Hathaway. Diversification is key although previously selling some weak stocks has helped. However, Amazon, Costco, Apple, Proctor and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Kroger, Logitech, Shopify, and Microsoft offset companies like VF, GM, 3M, Pfizer, Lowes, Home Depot, Bank of America, Travelers, Walgreens, and Disney. I don't even know whether to worry more about the ones doing poorly or the ones doing well.
If I was in my 60's or 70's I'd likely liquidate. I don't see the market performing well enough in the next three to five years to justify holding. We're younger so holding.
The other consideration is the tax consequences. Even with the market down, most have long term gains. However, I don't think the tax rate on capital gains will ever be lower and I don't think it will stay as low as it is. Historically it's lower than normal. We are considering liquidating just to pay the taxes under the current rates. If we suffer business losses this year, then that would make even more sense. This is a project we intend to evaluate next week and later in the year when we know more. One thing I would encourage people to do is liquidate any you can at 0% tax rates and consider any at 15%.
Then, what do you safely do with the money if you liquidate.
Today our worst investment is our businesses, mostly retail and manufacturing, which sells to retail. But then the last 6 years that's been our best investment and those are investments we won't consider selling.
This is something where the right answer is different for each person, but anyone should be asking and answering the question of themselves.