<prompt> Human: Title pretty much says it. Everyone here always suggests building an emergency fund of some arbitrary amount before paying down debt or making investments of any sort.To start off Im not really that well off. 24 M with a salary of 40K. I rent an apartment with my gf so for tax purposes Im single.The company I work for offers a 6 401k match that I max and I actually had to withdraw money from my HSA because I overpaid into it throughout the year. I put 500 a month towards my student loans, have 3 credit cards, and a total credit line of 10k. My car recently had engine problems costing me around a grand that I put on my CC.I try to keep less than 1K in my bank account at all times.After taxes, insurance, and the 401k my take home isnt great. Whatever money I have left after accounting for upcoming bills is promptly dropped in the stock market.Ive starting investing about a year ago and put around 11K in the market. I use Robinhood for day trading and short term plays and OptionsHouse for long term and option plays. My accounts have grown to over 23K in that time period.It seems like the mentality of most people around here is oh youve got to have 3 months of expenses in your emergency fund. Why? Ive had furniture bills that I was going to have trouble paying and sold 3K in stock last year 2k of which was capital gains to pay it off. You can literally take the money out of the market in less than a week and any immediate bills like car repairs I can just put on a CC and take care of it in a month.So my question is there any legitimate reason to keep money in an emergency fund when really its just siting in a checkingsavings account letting inflation wreck it? I guess the flip side is what if I lost money in the market. My response to that is I havent made money from every trade. You can learn from your mistakes and even if i did lose money I could realize up to 3K of it for every year on tax breaks.Assistant: I try to keep less than 1K in my bank account at all times.Did you mean to put less than? Why would you keep less than 1K in your account?The main reason why people advocate for an emergency fund is because of the unpredictable nature of life. Everything seems fine now, where youre employed with enough money to invest into stocks. But say that one day, your company decides to downsize, youre without a job, and the market isnt good. Say that you or your girlfriend are in a serious car accident or are diagnosed with a serious illness, and insurance only covers a portion of your expenses. Say your car breaks down entirely, and you have to purchase a new one. All of these things could occur, and thus an emergency fund exists as a fallback. Yes, it is just sitting in the account, but it is good to have a set of liquid funds that you could pull at a moments notice in case they are needed. You have your stocks, which are providing you with an extra income. However, the stock market is unpredictable. An emergency fund is better because it is a guaranteed balance that will remain stable for when you need it. Human: No I meant keep less than 1K. I hate the feeling of having money sitting around not doing anything. And like I said I can pull money out in less than a week if needed, so say my engine blows and I have to buy new car. I would be able to pull the funds to finance it whenever payments are due. I cant think of a situation where I would owe 10K immediately and not have time for funds to settle.  <response>: Imagine getting fired in the middle of a recession. Then you have no income and youd be forced to sell your stock at a huge loss. You are coming at it from the viewpoint stocks will never go down. Trust me, they will. And you need to have the liquidity to not sell. 