Dude, Liquidity is at stake. Period.
Yes it is, in almost every direction. there are people investing/betting their liquidity will grow if they think the markets will go up (going 'long') or going bad (doing a 'short').
When you take a position in the markets to bet one thing or another is going to happen, someone else takes the other side. One side gains, the other side loses, the trick is to keep it in small percentages of what you are playing with to survive to the next investment.
Do not invest on a margin, i.e. with borrowed money, because the markets can be crazy longer than you can ride out the ups and downs in the normal market cycles. You can be right about the general direct the market is moving in, but still lose your bet simply because you have a margin call and have to pony up some m ore cash to keep the position alive, meaning you are borrowing more money.
I only go long with long term investments because I want my money to grow but at a slow pace safely. I am too old to gamble my life's savings.
I have had day traders laugh at me many times and brag about how much money they have made, but the problem that they do not understand is that the market has much deeper pockets than they do, and if you keep playing the game you eventually lose everything.
You have to pull money out as you go and put it aside or you will eventually lose it.
So who was on the winning side on the 2008 market crash? A few shorted the markets and came out roses, some got out on the way up and dodged the crash.
The biggest winner was the Federal Reserve who bought a lot of money making CDOs and MBS that had no mark to market value but were still making money.