They can sit it out but that doesn't mean no one paid the bill.

And some others might need to pull out when its down.

Money doesn't appear out of thin air.

Why would it lead to recession if a handful of big companies lose money they have?

It will show that the USA is in a recession for sure, but otherwise

With most 401k plans, you can choose what you invest in to an extent. You can put it in bonds or other investments if you want.

Until someone can come up with a better option though...

Note that a pension plan that invests for you blindly is no better - either the returns are so bad that they are a scam, or they are investing in stocks anyway and so you get the same results but less control. Similar for things like social security, they are either worse options or you need to pump stocks.

This is what financial capitalism and "democratizing finance" has meant in practice. Rich people have access to different types of investments, and by the time those trickle down to common investors the juice has all been squeezed out. Whatever the trend is, by the time you hear about it the market has already been arbitraged by faster investors with more resources.

We are not going to come up with a market-based solution to fix income inequality. The solution, as much as people in the dwindling middle class resist it, is a strong social safety net coupled with a hard reset on taxation and housing policies. Nobody should be homeless, nobody should be allowed to starve, but you might have to accept that your 401K goes down in exchange for a government guarantee of housing and food.

This is hard for people to accept because they currently have equity in their home or a 401K to save them from starving. But those are transient, individualistic solutions. You can lose your house. You can lose your 401K. Society should be taking care of each other in a broader way than letting everyone accumulate a little, private pile of money.

You don’t have to invest your 401k in stocks.

When money is cheap you take it. Google sees all the capital waiting to pour into these AI IPOs, and correctly assumed they could tap into that with little dilution.

It makes good financial sense for a company to sell shares when the price is high and do stock buybacks when it's low. I guess they think the price is on the high side?

Also, selling shares puts them in a better position to survive a downturn (more cash, less debt).

Just look at the net income of alphabet.

Whatever financial games they play in the background, doesn't matter when you make that much per 2 quarters alone.