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If you are confident in this scenario, then rollover your 401k into an IRA, enable options trading, and buy puts or short the companies that you believe took on too much debt.

No need to be an accredited investor.

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This is not a good idea because with shorts you need to time the market correctly... Irrational markets can survive for years and shorts cost premiums, especially those with a distant expiry date. If you're not a stock analyst with inside info, you will not be able to get the timing right.

If you are concerned about timing it right, or macro-economic swings, simply purchase a corresponding long position in an index fund / S&P 500. Options do cost premiums, but shorts typically do not. You can however even recover the option premium with a similar strategy by selling a matching option on the index.

You can construct a trade that will make you money assuming your assumption is correct (that that company will underperform the market).

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